Health and Safety: TUC Report

Lord Harrison: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What is their response to the recent Trades Union Congress report regarding the frequency of inspections of the workplace for the purposes of health and safety.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, health and safety inspections form an important part of the overall system in securing high standards in the workplace. However, the best indicator of progress is to see a reduction in the incidence of work-related deaths, injuries and ill health. Our most recent evidence shows that some encouraging improvements have been made.

Lord Harrison: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer, but will those high standards be maintained if there is a further 25 per cent reduction in the number of inspections that take place, in the prosecution and conviction of negligent employers and in the safety improvement notices issued by the HSE, especially in the light of the recent Buncefield conflagration, after which, as an emergency, 108 other depots were inspected and five of them were found to be negligent and inadequate for health and safety purposes?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the action taken by the Health and Safety Executive following Buncefield shows the effectiveness of the response of that organisation. A safety alert was issued very shortly after the initial incident to more than 100 sites. All but six of were shown after inspection to be complying with the standards and, of those that were not, there were no serious areas of concern. Where there were instances in which the compliance levels were not up to the appropriate standard, action has been taken by the enforcement authorities. That shows that the Health and Safety Executive acted with speed and proportion, and it was a satisfactory outcome.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, mentioned a fall of over 25 per cent in the number of inspections recently, but that sort of average is not very helpful. What matters is that the businesses with the greatest risk should be inspected more often. In the light of that and of what the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, has just said, can the Minister tell me when the last two inspections were made at Buncefield before that tragic accident?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord's general comments on whether the number of inspections is important as compared with ensuring that your action takes place in the areas of higher risk. As for Buncefield, I do not think that it is appropriate that I give that information to the House today. The fact is that an investigation board has been established and is being chaired by an independent chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Newton. It has made three progress reports and will report in due course on fuller outcomes. We shall then have to see, on the basis of those outcomes, whether any further lessons are to be learnt.

Lord Brookman: My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend is aware that many on these Benches, including my noble friend Lord Morris, who is sitting before me, have had active lives in the wider trade union movement. I do not think that you would find anyone on these Benches or throughout the Chamber who would have anything other than praise for the Health and Safety Executive. Does my noble friend endorse that statement?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the impact of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the work of the executive and commission have been outstanding over a period of 30 years. Since 1974, the number of fatal injuries in this country has fallen by 76 per cent. That is down to a lot of hard work by all those concerned in both the executive and the commission. It is also because people in business and the public sector have responded well to the approach not only of inspection and enforcement but of encouragement and advice.

Lord Addington: My Lords, does the Minister not accept that, if the number of inspections is seen to be cut, it will act as an encouragement to those who wish to chance their arm and save money and inconvenience by not enforcing the law?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I do not really agree with that. If one were to use the number of inspections as an indicator of the success or otherwise of the Health and Safety Executive, that would only be an incentive for more and more inspections, many of which might not be necessary. The commission has taken the approach of maintaining that inspections and enforcement are very important while ensuring that those inspections are focused on the high-risk areas, alongside encouraging and supporting industries to improve their own safety position. That seems to me to be an acceptable and successful approach.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, will my noble friend advise the House whether, within the overall budget set by Her Majesty's Government, the Health and Safety Commission is in a position to set the strategic and budgetary priorities of the Health and Safety Executive?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the structures of the Health and Safety Executive and the Health and Safety Commission are throwbacks to a different era. They are two separate statutory bodies, but the resources flow through the commission. So far as the priorities are concerned, the commission sets the overall strategy, which, as I said, recognises the importance of a combination of inspections, enforcement, encouragement and advice. At the end of the day, that is very much owned by the commission.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, what is the position when the inspection reveals that individual workers are failing to comply with the rules on the use of their guard, their asbestos mask or whatever it is? What can be done about that? Will the Minister also comment on why he thinks it inappropriate to give the House the figure from earlier?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: Because, my Lords, I think it best to await the further reports from the noble Lord, Lord Newton, so that we can look at the whole question of Buncefield in the round to see what actions took place up to the incident and what lessons can be learnt for similar sites elsewhere.
	A number of actions are open to health and safety inspectors if a worker is found to be in danger or at risk. The inspectors can immediately issue an order to stop work if they believe that a person is at risk. They can ask the company concerned to change the way it works, and they can encourage people to take action in a way that runs short of actual enforcement action. At the end of the day, of course, they can take people to court. Various measures are available to the inspectorate, and having a combination of measures seems to be the way to ensure successful enforcement overall.

Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that workers' own actions as safety representatives have averted many accidents?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, there is no question but that the involvement of worker representatives and the work of safety committees have been very important in helping to improve our overall health and safety record.

Disability: Adult Learning

Lord Ashley of Stoke: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What discussions they have had with the Learning and Skills Council about adult learning provision for disabled learners.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, in 2004–05, the Learning and Skills Council supported 640,000 learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities—up 11 per cent on 2003–04, at a cost of £1.5 billion. Continued support for these learners remains a priority. The Learning and Skills Council has completed a strategic review of post-16 provision for these learners, and we are working with it to implement the review to ensure that appropriate provision is in place to meet their needs.

Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I appreciate that helpful information. However, does my noble friend agree that changes in the funding of adult learning have already resulted in the loss of more than 200,000 places and that thousands more are expected to be lost in the next few years? If that is so, what is the impact of those changes on basic learners, especially disabled learners? I am told that the cuts will radically affect disabled people.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, as my noble friend has rightly said, in the adult provision there has been a focusing of further education provision on the needs of younger learners. But in adult provision we have made it clear that learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities remain a priority and that we expect providers to maintain the numbers of those learners. We are investing significantly more in specialist colleges that cater specifically for adult students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. The investment in those colleges will rise from £125 million two years ago, to £181 million next year, a 50 per cent increase in funding in just three years. So we take the needs of that community very seriously.

Lord Addington: My Lords, I appreciate that the Government's drive is to get people qualifications that lead to work, but what is the logic behind threatening to cut courses that teach independent living skills for those with learning disabilities, for instance the ability to travel by yourself, and how does that affect their ability to gain work and thus live independently? How does that square with the Government's position?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, as I said, we expect that courses for learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities will be maintained and that numbers will be maintained. So I hope that the threat to which the noble Lord refers is not realised.

Baroness Darcy de Knayth: My Lords, will the Minister give the same confirmation that help will continue for disabled learners with learning difficulties over the age of 25? I believe that, under its disability equality duty, the LSC has a duty to them for as long as they are learning.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, as I say, we see learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities as a priority, and that applies equally to those over the age of 25 and those under the age of 25. So I hope that the noble Baroness's concerns are met.

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: My Lords, is any encouragement being given to those with disabilities, particularly learning disabilities, to become part of the provision of education for people with learning disabilities, as opposed merely to being consumers of it?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, indeed, that is the case. As my noble friend may be aware, we encourage such students to be taken on courses so that they can train to become FE lecturers and so on. The 70 specialist colleges to which I referred, which include four specialist colleges which do outstanding work for the deaf, include those with very specialist skills in this area. They would include provision of the kind that my noble friend mentioned.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, how many volunteers are still involved in adult literacy work, or have the Government demolished them all by squashing everybody into colleges?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, volunteers play a very important role in adult literacy and, indeed, in literacy in schools and with younger people too. I am not aware that we have done anything which squashes them. All our policy has been directed at improving provision for them.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, with respect, that is not what I asked. I asked how many volunteers were still working person-to-person on adult literacy. It is the colleges' takeover that has removed so many volunteers from the system. How many volunteers are still working thus?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I am not aware that we gather those statistics, but I will look at this and write to the noble Baroness.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, the Minister will know that the emphasis for adult learning is on adult literacy and basic skills and that many of the so-called leisure courses are now full-cost courses. Is there provision for those with disabilities who have a low income and indeed for those with a low income to take such leisure courses when they are full cost?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, there is. For example, more than 80 per cent of courses for lip reading—an issue which I know is of concern to my noble friend—are free even though there is a discretion to charge in the case of individual colleges. Strong encouragement is given to colleges to see that proper subsidies are in place for those with learning disabilities. The evidence that we have is that the issue is taken seriously by providers.

House of Lords: Reform

Lord Waddington: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What assessment they have made of the consequences for the House of Lords and Parliament of the prospective disqualification of the Law Lords from active membership of the House, and the possibility that retired judges of the new Supreme Court will not be Members of the House.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the Law Lords contribute significantly to scrutiny and debate in this House. The Government believe that the quality of this House's work will continue to be high when the Supreme Court begins to sit, as it will continue to have access to Members who have experience and expertise in the law, including retired judges.

Lord Waddington: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord agree that every body that has looked into reform of this place, including the royal commission, has paid tribute to the contribution made by the Law Lords and by former Law Lords to our work both in Committee and on the Floor of the House? Is it not rather absurd that, when the Supreme Court is set up, the Law Lords will be kicked out for no better reason than to emphasise the independence of the judiciary, which was never in doubt until the noble and learned Lord introduced his legislation, and to reinforce the doctrine of separation of powers, which was never part of our constitution? Surely we should try to save something from the wreck that the Government have created and at least make sure that, in any reformed House, there is room for at least some retired Supreme Court judges.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord's statement that everyone who has looked at the work of the Law Lords in the House has paid tribute to it, but the Government took the view that if you are to be appointed to the final court of appeal you should be appointed to a court and not to a parliament. That is a view that Parliament, in both Houses, in passing Section 137 of the Constitutional Reform Act, agreed with. This House currently has 100 Members who have legal or judicial experience, including 18 former Law Lords. I hope that they will continue to make the contribution that they have made in the past, and I believe that they will ensure that the House has access to expert legal opinion and advice.

Lord Borrie: My Lords, does my noble and learned friend agree that former and current Lord Chief Justices in recent years have made a particularly notable contribution, for example in our consideration of criminal justice Bills? Perhaps my noble and learned friend would consider that it would become almost automatic that they should be appointed on retirement to be Members of this House. The same point could apply to former Law Lords who would be willing and interested to take part in the legislative work of the House.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I can see no objection whatever to retired Lord Chief Justices, not just from England and Wales but from Scotland and Northern Ireland, coming to this place; equally in relation to retired Supreme Court justices. We made provision in the Constitutional Reform Act for the Lord Chief Justices of the three nations to be able to address the House, so that we could be informed by them. I remain of the view—as do the Government and as does Parliament—that when you appoint someone as a judge, you appoint them as a judge and not as a Member of the legislature.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord agree that there are quite enough of us lawyers in your Lordships' House already, with or without retired Law Lords?

Noble Lords: Hear, hear!

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, is it not reasonable to assume, following what the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, said, that at least former Presidents of the Supreme Court and former Lord Chief Justices are likely to receive life peerages in the same way as former Cabinet Secretaries? To have all retired Law Lords here automatically would be to overweight their presence.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I was profoundly distressed by the approbation shown in all parts of the House at the suggestion that it had too many lawyers. I agree that there should be a place in this House for retired Supreme Court justices and retired Lord Chief Justices, but I am not sure of the precise number.

Lord Wakeham: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor agree that there is a difficulty in picking some retired judges and putting them into this House but not others? It might be thought by some a favour for being a compliant judge. Might the best plan be for all Supreme Court judges to become Members of the House on appointment but not take their seat until they retire from the Supreme Court?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I agree that it would be invidious to select some but not others, but not with the noble Lord's conclusion that one should become a Member of the House on appointment. I think that one has to wait until one has ceased to be a full-time judge. That is the view expressed in the Constitutional Reform Act, approved by Parliament.

Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, my noble and learned friend said that a judge—someone appointed to the judiciary—did not have eligibility to remain in Parliament. How does that stack up against having bishops, who have a theological responsibility, sitting in this House?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the House of Commons has always excluded judges from being Members; the House of Lords did it in the Constitutional Reform Act. It would be unwise of me to step into theological areas at this point. I hope that the noble Lord will excuse me for saying nothing about the bishops; I am happy to see two right reverend Prelates in their place today.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I very much hope that the noble and learned Lord will not allow himself to drift into the notion that the legislation, in which he had a role, was universally welcomed or applauded. Is he aware that some of us see that development as part of an attempt by the Government to diminish the stature of your Lordships' House?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I recognise that there is continuing opposition to the legislation, but the important thing about it is that it was passed. We now have to give effect to it.

The Lord Bishop of Peterborough: My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor ventured into the realm of theology, might he reflect on the fact that the psalm that we read earlier this afternoon stressed the continuing importance of justice in the enacting of law?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, one of the great benefits of attending Prayers every day is that it allows me to reflect on the psalms. Indeed, it was the very thought that I was reflecting on after Prayers this afternoon.

Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, now that my noble and learned friend seems to have introduced exceptional categories such as judges, ex-judges, bishops and possibly retired bishops, how does he propose in future that that should square with his general views on democratic impulses for this House?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the views that I have expressed on the reform of the House do not exclude there still being an appointed element to ensure that one gets the benefit of expertise and wisdom from people who would not wish to stand for election. As I say, I have tried to avoid straying into anything other than the position of judges and ex-judges, so if the noble Lord does not mind I will not comment further.

Lord Henley: My Lords, exactly how much will it cost to transfer the Law Lords from here, and what will be the extra costs of having them operate from a different place? I ask in a genuine spirit of inquiry.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I do not have available the capital costs for Middlesex Guildhall, where subject to planning permission it is proposed that the Law Lords be housed, or the additional resource costs, but I shall write to the noble Lord.

NHS: Junior Doctors

Baroness Neuberger: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they have made plans to assist the 11,500 junior doctors who may miss out on training posts in England in 2007.

Lord Warner: My Lords, some 21,000 doctors are currently in senior house officer or equivalent posts. As part of the Modernising Medical Careers changes, they will be converted into a three-part mixture of run-through specialist training posts, fixed-term training posts offering early years training in a specialty, and staff posts. It is quite untrue that 11,500 junior doctors will miss out on training or be unemployed; but, as now, a proportion of those doctors will be in a staff rather than a training post.

Baroness Neuberger: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, and I shall not reflect on the Psalms—the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor was well advised not to reflect on them. Can the Minister confirm that it is intended that sufficient specialist training posts will be created annually to match the output of the UK's medical schools? Furthermore, given that Parliament votes funds to pay for education and training in the health service separately from service requirements, how will he ensure that those funds remain ring-fenced and will not fall prey to short-term service requirements or be raided to meet financial shortfalls?

Lord Warner: My Lords, as of now, the postgraduate deans and the NHS trusts are working together to consider how to use the funding for those posts and to create the right number of specialty training posts. We will have to wait and see how that will work out, and that will probably take the rest of this year, but there is no point in our not ensuring that the number of training posts is commensurate with the number of graduates from UK medical schools, which have a 70 per cent higher intake than in 1997.

Lord Walton of Detchant: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I was among the many members of the medical profession who argued for many years with governments of all political complexions that the establishment of GPs and of consultants in all specialities in this country was far lower per head of population than in many other European countries? We are grateful that this is the first Government to put substantial additional funding into the National Health Service. However, in the light of the increased number of GPs and consultants in all specialties made possible by the additional funding, does the Minister fully appreciate that the evidence suggests that there will not be sufficient specialist registrar appointments to compete for the GP and consultant vacancies, at a time when many GPs and consultants, frustrated by the recent NHS reforms, are taking early retirement?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I have the greatest respect for the noble Lord's expertise, and I liked the first part of his remarks more than the second. There is no compelling evidence to suggest that we will not continue to make an orderly transition to the Modernising Medical Careers system and to match the specialist training requirements for doctors and GPs in accordance with the outflow from the medical schools in this country.

Earl Howe: My Lords, it costs about £200,000 to train a doctor. In the light of that, what action will the Government take to ensure that doctors trained in the UK who do not succeed in securing a training post here do not leave the NHS and go overseas, something that many have indicated that they will do?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I must try to nail this point: there is no evidence that doctors who are qualified to take up those specialty training posts will not be able to do so. A very large number of those in the 21,000 senior house officer posts that I mentioned in my Answer are not in postgraduate training posts now; they are in staff and trust posts and are often not qualified to take specialty training.

Baroness Tonge: My Lords, is the Minister aware that, according to the Council of Deans and Heads of UK University Faculties for Nursing and Health Professions, there will be 12,000 nursing graduates between now and September and, so far, there are only just over 1,100 vacancies for those people to fill? What does he propose to do about that terrible wastage of nursing? In view of the fact that the Government are closing so many hospital beds, has he considered that those staff could be utilised as district and community nurses?

Lord Warner: My Lords, the noble Baroness is right that we need more nurses in the community setting, and we want to see more nurses going from training into that area. We are in close touch with NHS employers about the problems faced in some parts of the country by nurses coming out of training school, but that is in part due to the fact that the Government have increased the number of nurses in the NHS by 85,000 since we came to office and we have a better balance between supply and demand.

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: My Lords, what is being done to track the SHOs who are unable to find employment and are therefore leaving the UK? They cannot enter the specialist registrar grade because they have not served enough time in the SHO grade and therefore they are caught by being unable to secure the job that they need to progress in their own training.

Lord Warner: My Lords, there has always been a degree of competition for specialty training. Nothing has changed under the present arrangements, other than that we have a lot more doctors under this Government than we had before.

Conventions

Baroness Amos: rose to move, That notwithstanding the Resolutions of this House of 25 April and 22 May 2006, it be an instruction to the Joint Committee on Conventions that it should report by the end of this Session of Parliament.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, when this House and another place agreed to establish a Joint Committee on Conventions, the committee was set a deadline of 24 July by which to report. However, during discussion in both Houses, the Government were clear that any request by the committee for more time would be viewed sympathetically.
	At the committee's first meeting on 23 May, its members agreed to request that the deadline be extended to the end of the current Session. This Motion would implement that request. If the House agrees the Motion, a similar Motion will be tabled and considered in another place. I beg to move.
	Moved, That notwithstanding the Resolutions of this House of 25 April and 22 May 2006, it be an instruction to the Joint Committee on Conventions that it should report by the end of this Session of Parliament.—(Baroness Amos.)

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, the present deadline for submitting evidence to the committee is 21 June. Will that deadline be extended, too?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, that is a decision for the committee. I am not aware of its having extended the deadline.
	On Question, Motion agreed to; and a message was ordered to be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

Armed Forces Bill

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to which the Armed Forces Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:
	Clauses 1 to 53, Schedule 1, Clauses 54 to 113, Schedule 2, Clauses 114 to 163, Schedule 3, Clauses 164 to 168, Schedule 4, Clauses 169 to 180, Schedule 5, Clause 181, Schedule 6, Clauses 182 to 205, Schedule 7, Clauses 206 to 271, Schedule 8, Clauses 272 to 275, Schedule 9, Clauses 276 and 277, Schedule 10, Clauses 278 to 319, Schedule 11, Clauses 320 to 347, Schedule 12, Clauses 348 and 349, Schedule 13, Clauses 350 to 354, Schedule 14, Clauses 355 to 363, Schedule 15, Clauses 364 to 371, Schedules 16 and 17, Clauses 372 to 378.—(Lord Drayson.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Wireless Telegraphy Bill [HL]

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee (on Recommitment). Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of recommitment be discharged.
	Moved, That the order of recommitment be discharged.—(Lord Falconer of Thoroton.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill

Read a third time, and passed.

Electoral Administration Bill

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons reason be now considered.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	LORDS AMENDMENTS
	[The page and line references are to HL Bill 58 as first printed for the Lords.]
	8: Insert the following new clause—
	"REGISTRATION: PERSONAL IDENTIFIERS
	(1) The 1983 Act is amended as follows.
	(2) In section 10 (maintenance of registers: annual canvass), after subsection (4) insert—
	"(4A) Subject to subsection (4B) below, the information to be obtained by the use of such a form for the purpose of a canvass shall include—
	(a) the signature of each of the persons in relation to whom the form is completed, and
	(b) the date of birth of each such person.
	(4B) The Chief Electoral Officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (4A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapability of his or because he is unable to read."
	(3) In section 10A (maintenance of registers: registration of electors)—
	(a) after subsection (1B) insert—
	"(1C) Subject to subsection (1D) below, an application for registration in respect of an address in England, Scotland or Wales shall include—
	(a) the signature of each of the persons to whom the application relates, and
	(b) the date of birth of each such person.
	(1D) The Chief Electoral Officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (4A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapability of his or because he is unable to read.";
	(b) in subsection (5), at the beginning insert "Subject to subsection (5A) below,";
	(c) after subsection (5) insert—
	"(5A) A person's name is to be removed from the register in respect of any address if—
	(a) the form mentioned in section 10(4) above in respect of that address does not include all the information relating to him required by section 10(4A) above; or
	(b) the registration officer determines that he is not satisfied with the information relating to that person which was included in that form pursuant to that requirement.";
	(d) in subsection (6), after "above" insert "or his name is to be removed from it by virtue of subsection (5A) above,"; and
	(e) in subsection (8), after "5" insert ", (5A)".
	(4) In section 13A (alteration of registers), after subsection (2B) insert—
	"(2C) Subject to subsection (2D) below, an application for registration under subsection (1)(a) above in respect of an address in the United Kingdom shall include—
	(a) the signature of each of the persons to whom the application relates, and
	(b) the date of birth of each such person.
	(2D) The Chief Electoral Officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (4A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapability of his or because he is unable to read.""
	The Commons disagree to this amendment for the following reason—
	8A: Because it is not appropriate for personal identifiers to be collected as part of the registration process for all purposes

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 8, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reason 8A.
	I was re-reading in Hansard my contribution at the previous stage of the Bill when we talked about why we were dealing with personal identifiers in the way that we were, and I start today by going back over the reasons that I gave in your Lordships' House on that occasion. We all accept that the passage of this Bill has been an enjoyable experience in terms of our ability to work together in Parliament to tackle issues of electoral administration. We all agree that our democracy is very precious and that, when looking at the changes that we might make in electoral administration, we must do so with great care.
	We considered personal identifiers, and noble Lords will recall either from our previous debates or from reading Hansard that we looked at two possibilities of what might be done about the issue. First, we considered whether to pilot; we talked about the possibility of piloting some form of personal identifier in up to 10 areas. There were many discussions, both in your Lordships' House and in another place, and in the end it was felt that there were significant difficulties, which noble Lords accepted, so the idea was dismissed and removed from the legislation.
	We also considered the transitional arrangements and the idea that individuals could determine whether or not they wished to give additional information. I noted in my last speech on this subject that there were two significant difficulties with that proposal. The first was that it would make the form that had to be filled in potentially more difficult to understand. People would be given a choice: "Do you wish to give this information or not? You do not need to". We felt that that could create more difficulties for people in understanding what they were filling in. The second and significant problem with a transitional scheme is that only those people who choose to will give information. Although you may learn something about that self-selected group of people, you learn nothing about the people who do not give the additional information. Our concern is that that would lead us into difficulties in making sure that the register was as up to date and accurate as possible, and that people were not deterred from registering, which is a significant issue.
	We were then presented with an amendment, which originally came from all sides of your Lordships' House but was eventually tabled by my noble friend Lord Elder, who is in his place. That enabled us, through taking forward the postal voting proposals, to have a universal test bed of a personal identifier, which would give us the opportunity to see what happens when we ask people for additional information. All members of your Lordships' House agreed that this was a useful proposal, and from the Government's perspective it enables us both to look at the security around postal voting, which is an issue of grave concern, and to have a real test bed for personal identifiers. I am delighted that the consensus in your Lordships' House and outside, as we had the opportunity to discuss this at length, was that we should take this forward.
	The difficulty with the amendment that was presented and accepted in your Lordships' House, but which has now returned to us from the other place, was what would happen if we made personal identifiers universal. The Government feel strongly that that must be considered with enormous care. The only information, as I said before, is experience in Northern Ireland. I shall not reiterate all that I said before, except to say that we know that there were significant issues about what happened to the numbers on the electoral register. Indeed, legislation is currently going through Parliament to deal with some of the concerns that were raised.
	That is the only experience that we have and it shows that there were difficulties. To move directly to a system of universal personal identifiers is something that we must consider very carefully. The Government believe that we should do so only when we have the knowledge and experience that can be given to us by the amendment that was passed in your Lordships' House and accepted in the other place, and which was tabled by my noble friend Lord Elder, and, I know, supported and probably drafted by both the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham and the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. I think that I described them as a significant trio, which indeed it is.
	We are in the right place in this set of circumstances to have a test bed. I say that because I believe that we should move carefully with our democracy to make sure that we do not cause difficulties by chance. Of course there are security issues about which noble Lords are worried. I reminded myself that in the Bill there are 10 ways in primary legislation and five more that will come in through secondary legislation. We need to test the effects of all the proposals. They are significant and are designed to tackle some of the issues that noble Lords and the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, have raised as concerns.
	We are also, as my honourable friend Bridget Prentice made clear in another place, keen that discussions of what happens as a consequence of this Bill do not end with the passage of the legislation. Rather, we have said that it is absolutely right for some sort of post-legislative review: the opportunity for both Houses of Parliament to carefully consider the consequences of the legislation and to revisit and review how effective it has been.
	My honourable friend Bridget Prentice talked about the role of the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee, and we will be picking this matter up with the right honourable Alan Beith as chair. I would be keen to see Members of your Lordships' House take part in that. There is no reluctance on the Government's part to involve all parties in discussions about how this legislation works. Our democracy belongs to all of us. We would want to take that forward as quickly as possible, and we hope that it will in some way ensure that noble Lords understand the relevance and importance of this legislation, and the commitment of the Government to work across parties to determine that we have the best possible legislation in place to tackle all the issues that we have discussed at all stages.
	I am conscious of the amount of work that already exists for administrators within this legislation. We have had to look carefully at ensuring that the burdens that we put on them to implement everything in this legislation are appropriate. I am mindful of ensuring that we do not add to them.
	I have written to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, about time, because there is an issue with getting this legislation on to the statute book so that we can bring in everything within it. I do so in the spirit of giving information—nothing more than that. However, it is important that, when noble Lords make decisions on this Bill today, they understand the consequences of delaying the legislation. It effectively means that measures that we would have brought in later this year will not be brought in until 2007.
	I have said everything that I want to say, because I am conscious that noble Lords have heard many debates on this subject. I hope that your Lordships will accept the good will and intent of the Government. We are clear that we wish to see the opportunity, through the amendments of my noble friend Lord Elder that have been accepted, to look at the question of personal identifiers. We wish to involve Parliament in the process of examining everything in this legislation, which will help to keep the votes secure and ensure that people can exercise their democratic right. I hope that noble Lords will also accept that to add something untried and untested is potentially difficult and dangerous, and could damage our democracy. On that basis, I hope that noble Lords will accept the Government's view.
	Moved, that the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 8, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reason 8A.—(Baroness Ashton of Upholland.)

Baroness Hanham: rose to move, as an amendment to the above Motion, at end insert "but do propose Amendment No. 8B in lieu":
	8B: Before Clause 13, insert the following new clause—
	"REGISTRATION: PERSONAL IDENTIFIERS
	(1) The 1983 Act is amended as follows.
	(2) In section 10 (maintenance of registers: annual canvass), after subsection (4) insert—
	"(4A) Subject to subsection (4B) below, the information to be obtained by the use of such a form for the purpose of a canvass shall include—
	(a) the signature of each of the persons in relation to whom the form is completed, and
	(b) the date of birth of each such person.
	(4B) The registration officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (4A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapability of his or because he is unable to read."
	(3) In section 10A (maintenance of registers: registration of electors)—
	(a) after subsection (1B) insert—
	"(1C) Subject to subsection (1D) below, an application for registration in respect of an address in England, Scotland or Wales shall include—
	(a) the signature of each of the persons to whom the application relates, and
	(b) the date of birth of each such person.
	(1D) The registration officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (4A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapability of his or because he is unable to read.";
	(b) in subsection (5), at the beginning insert "Subject to subsection (5A) below,";
	(c) after subsection (5) insert—
	"(5A) A person's name is to be removed from the register in respect of any address if—
	(a) the form mentioned in section 10(4) above in respect of that address does not include all the information relating to him required by section 10(4A) above; or
	(b) the registration officer determines that he is not satisfied with the information relating to that person which was included in that form pursuant to that requirement.";
	(d) in subsection (6), after "above" insert "or his name is to be removed from it by virtue of subsection (5A) above,"; and
	(e) in subsection (8), after "5" insert ", (5A)".
	(4) In section 13A (alteration of registers), after subsection (2B) insert—
	"(2C) Subject to subsection (2D) below, an application for registration under subsection (1)(a) above in respect of an address in the United Kingdom shall include—
	(a) the signature of each of the persons to whom the application relates, and
	(b) the date of birth of each such person.
	(2D) The registration officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (4A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapability of his or because he is unable to read.""

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, before commencing my speech, I ask noble Lords to note that, in the amendment that we have tabled, we have corrected a technical error. There was a previous reference to the "chief electoral officer", but that has been amended to "electoral registration officer" throughout, as there is no chief electoral officer in England and Wales, only in Ireland.
	In the light of the temperate way in which the Minister has introduced this debate, I say with absolutely no hostility at all that I return to the question of the identifiers on a general basis. I completely agree with the Minister that the debate on this legislation has been extremely co-operative and helpful. Although I rankle slightly when she keeps on referring to the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Elder—since we were all there together—I acknowledge that the noble Lord was given some government help to get the amendment right at the end. But it is fair to say that this was a truly cross-party decision, and we have made substantial amendments to the Bill already.
	Last night, in Grand Committee, we considered a new electoral registration form, compiled with the help of a number of luminaries, including the Electoral Commission. Yet three of us at the Committee were still able to pick substantial holes in the form's comprehensibility. It was obvious that the information to be included on the form by the occupier was quite personal. Unless the household consisted of close family members, it would be difficult to ensure that the information was accurate. Some of it, relating to qualification by nationality, was not going to be easy for the occupier to obtain. That form does not arise from this Bill; it arises from previous legislation. It struck us as strange that it should be introduced at this juncture, when it will have to change to accommodate the requirement introduced by this legislation for personal identifiers for postal voters. However, we are where we are with that, but it underlined the ease with which incorrect information could find its way on to a registration form and from which personation could so easily arise.
	When we last considered this matter, I quoted examples of personation given by the Times—the cases were also cited in the other place—of people who were known to be in Pakistan at the time of the election but who appeared in polling stations on polling day and voted: they voted not by post, but in person. Since no checks are undertaken at the polling station, there would be no means for an officer to identify that the people voting were not those registered.
	It is a sad truth that there are people who do not act scrupulously with regard to voting and who do not consider it to be the precious right that I know the Minister and others involved in the Bill believe it to be. Those people do not believe that voting should be carried out with integrity, but are anxious for one reason or another to skew election results.
	As the Minister said, we have during the passage of the Bill co-operatively made huge changes to the provisions that it contained at the outset. One of the most successful changes has been to ensure that individual identifiers must be supplied for postal votes. It would stretch the matter only a little further to require that that should be done in general. Each person should be registered individually and should provide at least two identifiers, namely a signature and a date of birth—those are what will be required for postal votes—which can be checked at the time of voting in the polling station or, as far as postal voting is concerned, on receipt of the vote by the appropriate electoral registration officer.
	In this House and in the other place, one of the objections raised by the Government to extending postal voter identifiers to general registrations is that that might reduce the number of people on the register, at least in the short term. Having seen the new form last night, I am convinced that it will make it much easier for the person required to make the return for, for example, a house in multiple occupation to leave people off or to put them on incorrectly. I therefore do not accept that to have a register that is even more accurate than at present, even if the number of people on it is reduced in the short term, would be a world-shattering disaster.
	We have debated this matter on several occasions. We on this side of the House are convinced that, if the Government do not accept our amendment today, they will have to concede to it at a later date. We all know how hard it is to get legislation through, so that might be a long time coming. So I ask the Minister: if it is going to come, why not now? I beg to move.
	Moved, as an amendment to the above Motion, at end insert "but do propose Amendment No. 8B in lieu".—(Baroness Hanham.)

Lord Rennard: My Lords, our debates on this issue have revolved around the issues of principle and timing. I am particularly grateful that the Government have confirmed recently and repeatedly that they accept the principle behind individual voter registration. Indeed, only last week, the Minister in the other place, Bridget Prentice, said:
	"On Lords amendment No. 8, we have said previously that we accept the principle behind individual registration".—[Official Report, Commons, 13/6/06; col. 661.]
	So it is simply a matter of timing. Two opposition parties and the independent Electoral Commission think that now is the right time to introduce the measure. The Government clearly think that the best time is some time in future, when Members of another place may feel reassured that they will not lose many supporters from the electoral rolls as a result of such a measure.
	However, everyone else thinks that we need to deal with the potential for electoral fraud, especially in the postal vote system, as soon as practically possible. We need to deal with the sort of problems to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, just referred, which arose during the recent local elections. There is no value in checking someone's signature at a polling station if you do not have their signature on the voting register in the first place.
	It will reflect badly on Parliament if we do not do all that we reasonably can to deal with such problems before the next general election. Many sensible and fair political commentators, such as Peter Riddell writing in the Times last week, urge that we have a duty to act in this matter. With hindsight, we made a mistake in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 to allow postal voting on demand without proper safeguards when the system was so considerably expanded. The sooner we properly rectify that mistake, the better.
	In this Bill, with agreement, we have worked together to build in some measures to improve the security of postal voting. Those measures are welcome and worthwhile, but they do not go as far as they should. It would be better to get those things right now than to have many allegations of electoral fraud at the next general election—either in the postal voting system or at the polling station—clouding results or the outcome and bringing politicians generally into a lower level of regard than would otherwise be the case. Now is the time to act: before the general election.

Lord Elder: My Lords, I had not intended to intervene, but as I have been named a couple of times in whatever capacity, I thought that I might. I just want to reflect on those last comments, which might be taken to imply that in some way, unless an amendment is made today, postal voting will remain at issue. The great thing is that postal voting has been clarified. There will be no fraud in postal voting because of the steps that have already been taken. That is an important basis on which to go forward, because it is there and there alone that the Electoral Commission has, quite correctly, identified problems that need to be dealt with.
	As has been said, there are potential problems. However, once we have seen the effect of the introduction of individual registration for postal voting and all the other things on which my noble friend has commented in the Bill, it will be possible to assess the best way to move forward across the piece. My proposal has never been to stop individual registration; it has always been to introduce it on a sensible basis which electoral registration officers and everyone else can comfortably manage. We have dealt with postal voting; the Bill deals with that. On a proper timescale, we will get where we want to be, but I very much doubt that rushing it at this stage is wise or sensible.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I gather that the Minister has nothing further to say. I heard what she had to stay at the start. I have read carefully the debate in the other place, so I know precisely what the Minister there said, which was an acknowledgement that, in due course, it is more than likely that identifiers will be introduced for everyone who registers to vote. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. As I said in my opening remarks, we need to take advantage of legislation as it goes through this House. The matter needs to be dealt with at this stage. I hope that we will win the vote on the amendment. If we do not, I can tell the House that we will be back with it—I know that we will—probably in a co-operative way, in future. For today, I think that I should test the opinion of the House.

On Question, Whether the said amendment shall be agreed to?
	Their Lordships divided: Contents, 156; Not-Contents, 147.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
	Motion, as amended, agreed to.

Police and Justice Bill

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House in Committee accordingly.
	[The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord Brougham and Vaux) in the Chair.]
	Clause 1 [National Policing Improvement Agency]:

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 1:
	Page 1, line 9, at end insert—
	"( ) the Police Standards Unit"

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: After the previous excitement, the Committee will be pleased to know that this is a probing amendment.
	Clause 1 and Schedule 1 establish the National Policing Improvement Agency, which will replace Centrex and PITO. My amendment would add the Police Standards Unit to the list of bodies to be abolished by Clause 1(2), organisations which are, in practice, to be absorbed by the proposed National Policing Improvement Agency.
	I am well aware that as the PSU is not a statutory body it cannot technically be abolished in the fashion my amendment would suggest—hence it is a probing amendment. However, I hope my amendment will provide us with an opportunity to discuss the role of the PSU and whether it should be included within the new agency, and to consider the plethora of other bodies that will continue to direct and give guidance to police forces and authorities despite the creation of the new agency.
	The proposed establishment of the new agency has, of course, received broad support from many quarters. This support, however, is not free from caveats. The Minister informed us at Second Reading that the agency would help to rationalise the national policing landscape and inject new dynamism into support for operational policing, predominantly by subsuming some of the complex web of agencies that are currently supporting the service. It plans to bring together not only functions currently undertaken by PITO and Centrex but aspects of the work of the Home Office and ACPO—the Association of Chief Police Officers—in an aim to support and drive policing improvement. Sometimes when I look at the language so far used at the various stages of this Bill, both in this House and another place, and see the myriad titles of organisations, I wonder how on earth people keep abreast of them when they read our deliberations later.
	There are numerous organisations that assess police performance which are excluded from the agency. As well as the PSU, there is also the Audit Commission, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and local and regional government. As the Police Federation has highlighted:
	"all of these organisations require their own unique set of figures and information which creates a bureaucratic strain on forces, moreover there is a considerable degree of overlap between them which can lead to costly duplication of effort".
	Members of the Committee will recall that the Home Affairs Committee in another place noted that,
	"overlapping remits can paradoxically create holes through which important work may fall".
	I also recall that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, whom I see in his seat, wondered at Second Reading,
	"whether we should not bring more of these functions together to ensure that all the levers are available for an agency that was designed to improve policing practice".—[Official Report, 5/6/06; col. 1061.]
	I agree with him on that. I do not discount the valuable work that the PSU has achieved, but we need to ask ourselves whether we need a separate standards unit and an improvement agency at the same time.
	The PSU measures and compares police performance, identifying and disseminating good practice across the country. Meanwhile, one of the stated aims of the new agency, in addition to driving police improvement, is to,
	"ensure that national policing best practice is identified, evaluated and understood by police officers and police staff".
	That is a clear duplication of objectives and effort.
	How are the two bodies supposed to carry out these very similar functions without overlap? If, by chance, they produced work on the same issue, whose recommendations should be seen as paramount? Whose should be preferred? It is not unknown for there to be confusion about who is responsible for certain matters—the very problem that this part of the Bill is trying to address.
	If the PSU is not to be subsumed by the agency, then what of the suggestion of the Home Affairs Committee in another place that it would be desirable, even inevitable, that the inspectorate and the standards unit should eventually be merged in the continued rationalising of the tangled web of agencies? No doubt we will return to the inspectorate later in the Bill.
	The debate in another place only highlighted to me that we need further to address the extent to which the agency, the PSU and HMIC—within the new joint inspectorate that the Government plan—will overlap. Indeed, there seems to be some confusion between the former and current director of the PSU about the role and positioning of the organisation. Dr Kevin Bond, the former director, stated that the unit was created to act as a catalyst in the police service and that the proposal to merge the unit and the HMIC made sense. Yet the current director, Paul Evans, has said that the unit works out of the Home Office and that the inspectorate is independent.
	I should be grateful if the Minister could outline how these various organisations plan to work together in practice. Will there be formal memorandums of understanding and monthly meetings to co-ordinate the work? Will they be allowed to share work or set up joint ventures? How will there be effort without duplication of effort and ability? I beg to move.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: There is very little to add to what the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has said, other than that we support the amendment. The police are overburdened with inspection from a range of bodies. I thought it was the Government's intention to rationalise some of that, but we see that the Police Standards Unit will carry on regardless. Will the new National Policing Improvement Agency be able to take on some of its work? Where will their functions overlap, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, asked? Why was it not considered alongside the NPIA?
	Intervention in forces is being overseen by at least four organisations; the recipe for confusion is overwhelming. ACPO, the APA and the Police Federation all agree that duplication of effort is costly and that timely regulatory impact assessment before the NPIA would have been very helpful, but as yet we have not seen it. This is a very sensible amendment and I look forward to the Minister's response.

Lord Waddington: This may be a probing amendment, but it is none the worse for that. I was certainly glad to see it on the Marshalled List because, during my Second Reading speech, I had a few words to say about the Police Standards Unit. We are entitled to know a little more about what it is up to. I gather that it produced the booklet Hate Crime: Delivering a Quality Service. I would quite like to have a better idea about what that booklet says.
	Does the Home Office generally and the Police Standards Unit in particular accept any responsibility for the series of ridiculous investigations following complaints about allegedly homophobic and racist language? Members of my party are not the only ones to be concerned about too much attention being paid to politically correct causes. I direct the Minister to an article in the Guardian on 18 January by Jonathan Freedland. He suggested that some police officers do not seem to recognise the difference between a hate crime—a conventional offence of violence but one in which the violence is motivated by bigotry—and an incident in which language has been used which has been viewed by some people as racist or homophobic. Of course, there is all the difference in the world.
	Is the Home Office encouraging the police in this area? Does this error arise from bad advice given by the Police Standards Unit in the booklet to which I have referred? If it does not arise as a result of bad advice emanating from the Home Office, will the Government please explain and justify not only one or two cases where the police seem to have wasted their time on completely frivolous investigations, but a whole course of conduct which seems to extend to police forces all over the country?
	I remind the Minister that we have every right to be concerned about the questioning of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester after he made perfectly reasonable comments on the Church's teaching regarding homosexual acts. We are entitled to hear how it came about that Anne Robinson was questioned about allegedly anti-Welsh remarks as if she were about to commit some dreadful racist crime and start killing people because she had anti-Welsh motives in her make-up. We are entitled to ask how it came about that a respectable person such as Lynette Burrows was questioned by the police as if she were a common criminal after her comments on gay adoption on BBC Radio Five Live. We are entitled to ask how it came about that Sir Iqbal Sacranie, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, was investigated by the police after he had told the "Today" programme that homosexuality was not acceptable and should be viewed as a medical problem. Why was he treated like a common criminal about to use violence against people because he did not like their sexual orientation? It is almost too crazy to believe that it could have happened in this country.
	What about the journeying of officers from north Wales to investigate whether Lance Price had witnessed a hate crime committed by the Prime Minister as if the Prime Minister himself, shouting at the TV screen at the time of the Welsh Assembly elections, was a threat to public order? It is almost too crazy to believe that any chief officer of police would have directed officers to come down from Wales to carry out an investigation into the conduct of the Prime Minister. How has it happened? Is this the result of bad advice from the Home Office? If it is not as a result of that, how is it happening? Has the Police Standards Unit anything to account for in its behaviour?
	Then there was the gay horse incident at Oxford, when an undergraduate who said to a police officer, "Do you realise your horse is gay?", found himself arrested under Section 5 of the Public Order Act for making homophobic remarks and spent the night in the cells. We can smile at that and think that it is funny, but any police officer who has learnt anything about the law must have known that that undergraduate had not committed any offence at all. He was not threatening people with violence; all that he was doing was making what they took to be a tasteless remark about homosexuality.
	Lastly there was the case of the couple in Fleetwood who put in a call to the Wyre Borough Council to ask if they could display evangelical Christian literature in council buildings to counteract what they regarded as an abundance of gay rights material. They finished up being investigated by the police.
	When you look at all those incidents together and add up the police time wasted, you really are forced to the conclusion that chief officers of police throughout the land seem to have got completely the wrong end of the stick with hate crimes. Why have they got the wrong end of the stick? You have all these units in the Home Office that are supposed to be advising them which is the right end of the stick, yet they get the wrong end of the stick. I suggest that it is about time we looked at what sort of advice is coming out of the Home Office and the Police Standards Unit.
	It is clearly an insult to the public that time should be spent on these matters when some forces are saying that they have no time to investigate shoplifting. It really is an insult to the public when one reads of the police in Hull screening out theft, criminal damage, common assault, harassment and non-domestic burglary because they have to meet Home Office targets. The question is, when behaving in this ridiculous fashion, were the police trying to implement what they thought were government policies and priorities? Were they following advice given by the Police Standards Unit in its booklet Hate Crime: Delivering a Quality Service? If so, the sooner that the unit is dissolved the better.
	Perhaps in her closing remarks the Minister will say whether I have got the wrong end of the stick or the police have got the wrong end of the stick and what the explanation is for these bizarre investigations and the complete waste of police time involved.

Lord Dholakia: I support the amendment, as my noble friend Lady Harris, said, but I do not necessarily subscribe to the examples given by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. I am aware of the extent to which police have taken a very high profile on hate crimes. There are bound to be occasions from time to time when things will not necessarily work out, but it is to the credit of the police and other agencies that this has now been highlighted as a successful example in which there have been more and more prosecutions.
	My main concern, in which I support the noble Viscount and the noble Baroness, is whether we need so many organisations to monitor, inspect and audit. It would be helpful if the Minister could indicate whether there is co-ordination between different agencies and whether regulatory impact statements are available to see how successful they have been. Overall, any Government and any Minister would welcome abolition of a particular body, as it would save them the resources that they are always complaining about. So I certainly support the amendment.

Lord Monson: The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, said he disagreed with the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, and thought there was some merit in continuing to work against hate crimes. No doubt, but none of the examples the noble Lord cited was actually a crime. They may have been offensive to someone, but none of them would have had the slightest chance of being taken to court. The police were intimidating people in the knowledge, I am sure, that they could not prosecute them successfully.

Lord Dholakia: I do not dispute what the noble Lord has said. The point I was trying to make is that you can take examples of the police taking action that do not necessarily fit within the overall ambit of racial crime, but they have undertaken to give race hate crimes a very high profile, which is reflected in the large number of such cases now being prosecuted.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I shall deal first with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. It is a wonderful privilege to give advice. Whether that advice is taken and used judiciously with skill and judgment is something else. If we had a recipe for imparting and applying judgment with consistency, I can promise the noble Lord that I would be first in the queue to acquire it so it could be shared among all.
	The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, is right when he says that the high profile that has been given to hate crime—I know that is not directly involved with this question, but it is right that I address it—has been very important. Although the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, highlights issues that may need correction, I am confident that he accepts that there have been the most distressing and quite disgusting cases where individuals have been pilloried, abused or threatened as a result of hate, and I know that those are things that the noble Lord, as a former Home Secretary, cannot but abhor. I would not like anyone to misunderstand the way these matters are proceeded with.
	I say to the noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay and Lady Harris, and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, that I am grateful that there is an understanding. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, clearly said that this was an exploratory amendment. As she says, the Police Standards Unit is not a statutory body in the way that Centrex or PITO are, and therefore cannot be abolished in the same way; nor do we think there is any justification for doing so.
	The NPIA is about creating a police-owned and police-led organisation that strongly supports self-improvement in front-line policing. As such, the NPIA will not take direct control of the mechanisms for monitoring police performance, nor will the agency be responsible for police performance management at the national level. Those functions should remain firmly with the Police Standards Unit at the Home Office, though there will of course need to be a very close working relationship between the two bodies. The distinction between monitoring and improving standards is an important one for us to acknowledge, because while we would expect the unit to work closely with the NPIA in its work to drive improvement in service delivery, the Police Standards Unit continues to have a key role to play in providing my right honourable friend the Home Secretary and his successors in title with the means to identify performance variations across the service, as well as the capacity to respond to help reduce those variations and work towards parity of police service provision across England and Wales.
	Since its creation in 2002 the Police Standards Unit has demonstrably proven the value that it has added both to public access to information on policing performance and identification of performance issues and in improving performance through targeted engagement. The PSU has led on the creation of the policing performance assessment framework, which for the first time provides a more balanced view of policing performance and allows comparative assessment of forces. This has meant that we are now able to publish annual assessments of policing performance. The PSU has also driven through the Government's commitment to provide local policing performance summaries to every household in England and Wales, which started in April.
	The PSU's work on assessment underpins the ability of the Home Office to spot performance variations in areas of priority, and the unit has a unique capacity to respond in a targeted way to help drive performance improvement where necessary. For example, in 2004–05, the eight forces that the PSU worked with reduced crime twice as much as the average of other forces—11.4 per cent versus 4.6 per cent—and five of the nine largest reductions in crime over the past 12 months have taken place in forces which have been engaged with the PSU. Latterly, the unit has also worked intensively with around a quarter of forces to help them improve their performance on sanction detection rates, and again the average performance improvement in these forces has been around double that of the average of other forces—4.4 percentage points versus 2.3 percentage points—between September 2004 and November 2005. The Police Standards Unit also played a key role in the recent highly effective alcohol misuse enforcement campaigns and co-ordinated work across all forces which has helped address alcohol-related violent crime.
	There are elements of the Police Standards Unit's current work that may sit better with the NPIA in the future, in particular some of its remit to identify and disseminate good practice; for example, the work it is doing around development of automatic number plate recognition—ANPR—and video identification. As the Police Standards Unit already works with some of the NPIA precursor bodies on good practice issues, it will continue to work with the NPIA proper to ensure the appropriate home for the relevant functions.
	However, the obvious benefits to policing in this country of addressing crime appropriately and having the Police Standards Unit as a central resource able to respond rapidly to performance priorities clearly outweigh any case for its removal. We hope that the NPIA will start in April next year.
	I understand the concern that Members of the Committee have raised about duplication. I reassure them that we are conscious of that and can address it. So we have the synergy. I say gently that we have learnt that working in partnership in a unified way in a common structure and framework has greatly assisted performance. We shall continue to work in a collaborative way for that purpose. We have indicated in the other place that it might be helpful to provide a note to Members of the differences between the two, where the overlaps are perceived to be and how that would be managed. If the Committee thinks that it would assist, I should be very happy to make a note available so that there is a greater degree of clarity on the issue.

Lord Waddington: Does the noble Baroness agree with Jonathan Freedland that it is of great importance that the police should recognise the difference between a hate crime, a conventional crime of, say, violence motivated by bigotry, and an incident in which language is used which somebody or other thinks is racist or homophobic? If the police do not recognise that distinction, we are in a mess. Does the booklet containing advice from the Home Office point out to the police that there is a world of difference between those two situations? I fear it cannot do so, or we would not have had the very many incidents to which I have referred.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: It is my belief—I do not have the document in front of me, so I am subject to correction—that the document provides practitioners with an accurate review of dealing with hate crime. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, remembers all too well from his time in office the real challenge of ensuring that every police constable and every practitioner has a clear understanding of their duty. I assure the noble Lord that we are doing all in our power to make sure that the correct level of advice and information exists so that appropriate prosecutions are taken up. I remind him that the changes we have made which make the Crown Prosecution Service responsible for charging serious offences should help us to better sift. I cannot comment on each and every one of the cases raised by the noble Lord and it would be invidious for me to do so. Not least, I have found from my experience that the recitation of facts in the newspapers does not always bear direct correlation to the truth.

Lord Waddington: As we are in Committee, I confess that I was a Minister of State in the Home Office when the Public Order Act 1986 went through the House. I have a clear recollection of the discussions on what the outcome might be and how useful the legislation would be. I assure the noble Baroness that we never had stupid cases like these in my time in the Home Office, so something must have happened to change the general climate.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I do not know whether to rise; perhaps I should. I do not know whether the noble Lord is throwing down the gauntlet, because I think that some of us may be able to think of a few such cases.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am grateful to all noble Lords who took part in this short debate. It was intended to be a gentle, probing amendment to open the discussions. As ever, I can rely on my noble friend Lord Waddington to put us on the right track very early on.
	I am grateful for the way in which the noble Baroness responded; she has given my noble friend Lord Waddington the opportunity to consider further and perhaps return to this at a future Committee sitting. I point out to my noble friend that he might wish at some stage to look at an amendment after Clause 20, Amendment No. 115. It is an admirable amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, to which I have added my name. It was proposed by the organisation for guide dogs and requires a new clause on the collection of data. It states:
	"The Secretary of State shall collect and interpret data on reporting of offences which manifest prejudice based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity or other group characteristic."
	That is an important matter to which we will need to return in a constructive manner.
	I also accept with alacrity the Minister's offer to provide us with the note setting out the relative activities and roles that are played by the organisations; that would be helpful. As the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, said earlier, colleagues in another place were promised a detailed regulatory impact assessment on this part of the Bill. I direct the Minister's attention to that, because we still have not had it. I hope that the Government might think further and provide that by the time we get to Report. We have only a very limited RIA at the moment.
	I take on board what the noble Baroness said about there being two overall different approaches between the organisations. One, the agency, will be looking at improving standards, and the other will be looking more at monitoring. I agree with my noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, that there is a recipe for confusion. None of us wants that, let alone the new agency. It is something that we will need to consider further as the agency picks up its new role and, we hope, operates successfully. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 2:
	Page 1, line 9, at end insert—
	"( ) 15 per cent of the Agency's funding shall be provided by police authorities."

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 3 to 11. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, for their support for Amendments Nos. 2, 10 and 11. It is a fairly substantial group. I put the amendments together because they probe the accountability and governance of the new National Policing Improvement Agency.
	Amendment No. 2 inserts a new subsection after Clause 1(2). As we have discussed, Clause 1 sets out provision for the creation of the new agency. My new subsection sets out that the police authorities should provide 15 per cent of its funding. Amendment No. 11 inserts the same principle into Schedule 1; it is merely consequential. Fifteen per cent is no magic figure to which I am necessarily wedded. It is simply put forward to ask the Government to justify the manner in which they have established the governance of their new agency. Throughout the progress of the Bill in the other place, the Government stated that:
	"Police service buy-in will be fundamental and critical to the success of the new Agency"
	and it has been repeatedly stated that the agency should be police-owned and led; in our first debate, the Minister alluded to that.
	My amendment would hope to cement that principle into the Bill. It was a recommendation made by the agency steering group and was particularly supported by the Association of Police Authorities. At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey—he is no longer in his place; I am sure it is only momentary—made the criticism that:
	"The proposed arrangements for the ownership of the new agency are also deficient".—[Official Report, 5/6/06; col. 1061.]
	To date the Government have rejected the proposal. In correspondence to the Association of Police Authorities, they stated that:
	"Ministers rejected the recommendation on the ground that although the Government will provide 100 per cent of the Agency's funding, we want the APA and ACPO to have full say, through their representation on the Board and more widely, in how the entire budget is spent to deliver the agency's priorities. A proportion of direct funding from the APA, or indeed other stakeholders, would only allow influence over an arbitrary portion of the budget and would detract from, rather than enhance, the police's collective 'ownership' and leadership of the agency".
	Those comments miss the point. The aim of the suggestion in the amendment is not to imply ownership over a defined 15 per cent of the budget; it really means that the 15 per cent contribution would show a commensurate level of influence over the running of the whole agency. It would give an opportunity to show collective ownership. While that aspect of what the Government are doing easily feeds into a central theme of more government control, I hope that they will step back from that. It is important that local accountability is shown to have a real role by having local contribution to the budget.
	The Association of Police Authorities also recommends that the agency and not the Home Secretary should appoint and determine the remuneration of the chief executive, subject of course to agreement afterwards by the Secretary of State. My Amendment No. 10 proposes such an arrangement. If the agency is to be truly owned by the police forces, which is what the Government say that they envisage, it would make good sense to allow the expression of that ownership by letting the board appoint the chief executive.
	Amendment No. 9 would ensure that a majority of members of the agency were non-executive. That is perfectly sensible and in tune with the principles of corporate governance. The Government have said that they intend there always to be a majority of non-executive members, but that they do not want to put that into the Bill. If that is the intention, why not simply achieve it now?
	Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 simply change the number of members to be appointed under paragraph 7(4) of Schedule 1 from a minimum of one to a minimum of two. Again, there is no virtue in the number; it is simply there to ask the Government to explain what size of board they anticipate should be appointed, and what they consider the optimum working size to be. The interests to be represented on the board as listed in the Bill are police authorities, chief officers of police and the Home Civil Service. My amendments increase the minimum for the first two categories but leave the Civil Service minimum at one. I do not intend to antagonise the Civil Service; this is just a device to stimulate discussion. One person who is broadly representative of the police authorities will, of course, sit on the board, but does that really amount to a proper role in the agency's governance?
	The remaining four amendments in the group are intended to ask the Government to explain why they have selected certain groups as statutory consultees but not others. Thus, Amendment No. 6 raises a question about the procedure for appointing the chairman of the agency. Paragraph 7(2) of Part 2 of the schedule requires the Secretary of State to consult,
	"persons whom he considers to represent the interests of chief officers of police",
	and of police authorities, before he appoints a chairman. Why is there no reference to consultation with those who represent the interests of ordinary police officers? Amendments Nos. 3, 4 and 5 examine the consultation process that surrounds the production of the agency's annual plan. Before finalising the plan, the agency is required to consult the Home Secretary, the police authority for the relevant area and those who represent the interests of the chief officers of police. Again, why leave out those who represent the interests of ordinary police officers?
	Finally, Amendment No. 4 would require consultation of the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents' Association in that group. ACPO's briefing points out that the Bill does not recognise it, in particular, since it states that the Home Secretary, in determining the strategic priorities for the agency, will consult,
	"persons whom he considers to represent . . . chief officers of police".
	While I recognise that that has usually meant ACPO, I understand that the former Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, agreed that the national role of ACPO was too important to allow that potential ambiguity to remain. ACPO understands that Mr Clarke was supportive of amending the Bill to recognise it by name as a statutory consultee. That is what my Amendment No. 6 does. ACPO believes that the rationale for that has, if anything, been strengthened by recent events and it asks that the verbal commitment given by Charles Clarke should be honoured by the current Home Secretary, Dr John Reid. I beg to move.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: We support these amendments and I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 2, 10 and 11 in particular, to which we have added our names. I shall also say a few words about Amendments Nos. 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
	On Amendments Nos. 2 and 11, it is absolutely right to put some of the responsibility for payment towards the new agency on to police authorities and forces. They, after all, will be the recipients of the agency's work. It is intended that the NPIA provides assistance and advice to forces in a variety of areas, but will primarily be focused on good practice and improvement. The Association of Police Authorities has always argued that the agency should be owned by the service and be radically different from the two agencies, Centrex and PITO, that will be abolished when the Bill comes into force. Allowing police authorities to part-fund the NPIA would demonstrate that they had some stake in and ownership of the agency. Their input would also act as a balance to central direction and control.
	On Amendment No. 3, I am sure that we will have further considered debate about the Secretary of State's ability to make directions—in this case, to set the NPIA's priorities. Why shouldn't the agency be able to come up with its own priorities? What flexibility will it be given? As it is a new police agency, it is important not to be so prescriptive at the beginning of its life, otherwise it becomes a political tool of government. Does that not fly very much in the face of good governance, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has remarked? I would be interested to hear the Minister's views on that amendment in particular.
	On Amendment No. 6, it is probably good practice to put on the face of the Bill those agencies involved in professional policing. The chief officers already have a locus and are recognised as such. Therefore, it would be a good idea to add the Police Superintendents' Association and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, suggested, the Police Federation of England and Wales. The federation has been consulted on all policing matters since 1919. It would be invidious not to put that consultation down formally, as the work of the NPIA will impact on the frontline troops more than on anyone else.
	We support Amendments Nos. 7 and 8. When the national service authorities—the NCS and the NCIS—were constructed, their membership from police authorities was much larger, and proper representation from people who have day-to-day knowledge of what is needed will be vital if the NPIA is to deliver to communities.
	Amendment No. 9 very much concerns a government matter. I hope that the Government will feel able to support it—if not today then at a later stage of the Bill. Perhaps they will come forward with their own suitably worded amendment to recognise the issue. This matter is very important to us all.
	We added our names to Amendment No. 10 because of the fundamental principle that it addresses. The safeguard for the Secretary of State, should it be needed, is set out in proposed subsection (2). It is a very important principle that a chief executive is not imposed on the agency. It would set the wrong tone of centralisation, with the possibility of the Secretary of State choosing someone who was not necessarily knowledgeable about the whole business of policing, if I may put it in that way. It is a matter of delivery or culture and issues of that kind. I hope that the Minister will consider carefully the message that the amendment is trying to deliver. We support the amendments.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: Before I get into the body of the response to this very wide group of amendments, I should advise your Lordships about the regulatory impact assessment, particularly as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, raised the question in our previous discussion. I understand that it has been published and posted on the Home Office website.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I wonder whether that is the full, over-arching one. I was certainly aware that there was an RIA—I obtained it from the Printed Paper Office—but I am not sure whether it was the one that was expected in another place. It may well be possible for the Government to produce it. The noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, is nodding, so, if that is the case, we will look at it and come back if we feel that we need to ask any other questions.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My understanding is that it is the full-blown works, but we had better check and be absolutely certain. If the noble Baroness and other participants in the debate want a paper copy, I am sure that we can undertake to provide one.
	As I said, this is a very wide-ranging group of amendments and it is also a very well intentioned one. I entirely understand the spirit in which the amendments have been tabled and also the thinking behind them. I should say at the outset that I do not necessarily agree with the conclusions that the noble Baronesses have drawn, but we certainly understand the spirit behind the amendments.
	We are determined that the National Policing Improvement Agency will be a police-owned and police-led body for the entire police service. As such, we do not believe that there is a need to segment funding and to have a separate revenue stream from police authorities. The Association of Police Authorities has been part of the steering group that has driven the development of the agency and it has also been part of the discussion and subsequent agreement around how the agency should be funded.
	Looking at Amendment No. 3, I find it hard to accept that the priorities determined annually by the NPIA should not be consistent with the Home Secretary's strategic priorities for the agency. It is an entirely proper function of the Home Secretary to set the strategic priorities for the police service as a whole and for national agencies, such as the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the NPIA. That, after all, is what governments are elected to do. Having set the strategic priorities for the NPIA after full consultation with ACPO, the APA and the agency itself, it would be absurd for the agency then to set its own priorities without reference to the Home Secretary's strategic priorities. It is critical that we approach the strategy for policing in a joined-up way, and that the Home Office, ACPO, the NPIA and the rest of the service are working for the same priorities. Importantly, having set the strategic priorities for the agency, it will of course then be for the NPIA board and chief executive to determine how to give effect to them.
	Amendment No. 4 seeks to add the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents' Association as statutory consultees before the agency's annual plan is finalised. I am happy to place on record my expectation—the Government's expectation—that both organisations will be fully consulted as part of the development of the NPIA's annual plan. But I do not think that the amendment is appropriate. We are already committed in the legislation to consult ACPO and the APA as representative organisations of the other two tripartite partners. There is a precedent for limiting consultation in this way within the Police Act 1996.
	I hope that the noble Baroness will take comfort from the fact that I know that the chief executive designate, chief constable Peter Neyroud, will be consulting all the staff associations and representative bodies, including the Chief Police Officers' Staff Association, SPOSA, UNISON, the National Black Police Association and the British Association for Women in Policing. It is perfectly proper that he should. The purpose of the Bill, as drafted, will enable him to consult who the agency thinks fit, and I am satisfied that a flexible approach is the right way forward.
	Crucially, the NPIA will also consult communities, which is a vital requirement if the agency is to be genuinely focused on customers and supporting the police service in providing the kind of policing for which we and communities strive together.
	Amendment No. 5 is about the appointment of the NPIA chair. It would place a statutory duty on the Home Secretary to consult the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents' Association before making the appointment. I do not accept that that should happen. Under the legislation, the Home Secretary is already obliged to consult ACPO and the APA. That is right and proper, as it reflects the unique tripartite relationship that underpins policing in this country. However, to extend the duty to consult to police staff associations would be mistaken, as it is not a matter with which they should be directly engaged. The NPIA will be the engine that supports the tripartite relationship and drives policing improvement. As such, it should be for the tripartite partners to inform the decision-making that leads to the chair's appointment. It will then be for the Home Secretary finally to make the appointment because the Secretary of State will be ultimately accountable to Parliament for the effective leadership and operation of the agency.
	Amendment No. 6 addresses a different issue. In accordance with the standard drafting convention, paragraph 5(7)(c) of Schedule 1 would require the NPIA, before finalising its annual plan, to consult
	"persons whom the Agency considers to represent the interests of chief officers of police".
	In practice, that will mean that the agency consults the Association of Chief Police Officers—ACPO. The amendment is otiose.
	I have some sympathy for the amendment of the noble Baroness. The president of ACPO, Ken Jones, has pressed the case for the association to be recognised as a statutory consultee, reflecting its position as a professional leader of the police service, and as one pillar of the tripartite framework. That point was also made in ACPO's briefing to Peers in advance of Second Reading.
	We are ready to give this proposal further consideration, but a number of questions will need to be resolved before we come to a final view. If we refer by name to ACPO, the question would then be: why not also to the Association of Police Authorities? What should the legislation say when the issue in hand concerns the conditions of service of chief officers? ACPO is not a staff association. That role is taken by the Chief Police Officers' Staff Association, which in some cases will be the appropriate consultee. More significantly, is it enough simply to provide for ACPO to be a statutory consultee? Is there a case for putting the association on a statutory footing? In asking these questions, I make it clear that the Government have no particular answer or conclusion in mind. We will need to discuss the issue with ACPO further before deciding on the best way forward. So, while this amendment is well intentioned, I suggest to the noble Baroness that it would be premature to push the point today. I therefore ask her to withdraw the amendment in the knowledge that we will at least continue to explore the options with the Association of Chief Police Officers.
	Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 seek to ensure that ACPO and the APA will have a minimum of two representatives each on the NPIA's board. It is only right and proper that ACPO and the APA are guaranteed representation on the board. After all, the NPIA will, as I said at the outset, be a police-owned and led organisation, and ACPO and APA membership is integral to ensuring that. It is not, however, necessary to stipulate the minimum number of representatives each organisation should have, above one.
	In practice, we are trying to achieve a streamlined, dynamic and responsive board that will effectively steer the agency at a strategic level. In establishing the first appointed board, it is likely that there will be two members each from ACPO and the APA. But we do not want to be overly prescriptive about its final size and membership, both of which should be kept constantly under review, and should be flexible and responsive to change, if necessary, to ensure greater effectiveness.
	On Amendment No. 9, consistent with the commitment the then Minister for policing gave in Committee in another place, it is our intention that there will be a non-executive majority on the board of the NPIA. This will bring a wider perspective and diverse input to the oversight and governance of the agency. The Bill provides that the chief executive should be a member of the board, consistent with guidance by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. At this stage, we do not intend that any other executives shall be members of the board. Other members will include the non-executive chair and members appointed by the Secretary of State, including the tripartite representatives. I would like to think that the noble Baroness will accept my assurance that non-executive members will be in the majority, as this will be the best way of holding senior staff to account and taking difficult decisions about organisational priorities.
	On Amendment No. 10, the chief executive of the NPIA is a critical appointment for policing in this country. As such, it should fall to the Home Secretary ultimately to make that appointment. Moreover, ensuring a successful relationship with the right balance of skills and experiences between the chair of the NPIA board and the chief executive of the agency will be crucial to the NPIA's success. This adds further weight to the importance of the appointment and, in turn, the need for the Secretary of State ultimately to make it. That said, the Home Secretary will not make this appointment in isolation. He will, of course, fully consult the tripartite partners and the chair of the board in making the chief executive appointment. Additionally, the tripartite partners will be entirely consulted on the chair appointment.
	The NPIA will be the authorities' and forces' agency. We will establish the NPIA board so that it is fully representative of the whole service. Flowing from this, we will seek collective service-wide "buy-in" to expenditure and commissioning arrangements for the entire NPIA budget through the agency's board and its appropriate committees, sub-committees and consultative groups. These decisions will need to factor in the strategic priorities that the agency is tasked with achieving. But, again, while these will ultimately be set by the Home Secretary, they will, of course, be decided upon in full partnership with our tripartite partners and the police service more widely. Rather than have one of those tripartite partners deciding on 15 per cent of the NPIA's funding, we want to give the APA and ACPO, through their representatives directly on the board, the power collectively to decide, after consultation with stakeholders and customers, how 100 per cent of the agency's budget is spent. We also want to achieve collective agreement to the NPIA's spending and, more widely, to the NPIA's overarching strategic direction and purpose.
	I believe that I have addressed most of the issues raised by the amendments, but I am conscious that, I think, noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, asked about the size of the board. The figure is not fixed, but we intend to have a board of a size that we think would work well, probably of about 12 people. The board will be more streamlined than the larger boards that have overseen Centrex and PITO. We think that a membership of 12 is about right and will work best, but there may be some flexibility at the edges. I trust that noble Lords who have participated in the debate on this amendment will read into my encouraging comments our desire to ensure that consultation is continued on all those issues. I look forward to the responses of both Front Benches on these matters.

Lord Dholakia: Will the Minister elaborate further on the role of the Home Secretary in the appointment of the chief executive? I well understand the appointment of the chairman and members of the board, including the representatives of the professional bodies, but does that fall comfortably within the recommendations of the Nolan committee on making such appointments? The Home Secretary is not going to be a member of the board and the chairman and members of the board will be running the organisation, so will it not be a recipe for disaster to impose a chief executive without the adequate involvement of other people?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I do not share the pessimistic view of these matters held by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. This is a national agency, and the Home Secretary is ultimately accountable for its development, work, strength and success. It is clearly right that he makes his view about the overall strategic direction clear. The chief executive post is an important part of ensuring that the agency works in a way that is consistent with the Home Secretary's view, for which he is held to account. I explained earlier that the chief executive will be a member of the board and that that is consistent with the guidance offered by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. These arrangements are workable and right. They take us in the right direction. They are not uncommon in organisations that have been set up by statute where the strategic direction is set by Secretaries of State. I am content with the arrangements that we have established. It is also worth saying that Peter Neyroud was appointed on the advice of a selection panel that included APA and ACPO members. Both organisations were involved in the process. While the Secretary of State ultimately carries the can and takes responsibility, the process was not conducted without wider involvement and participation.

Lord Borrie: I want to pursue the point about the chief executive raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. The Minister seems to present a much stronger case for the body at its outset, when it is entirely new. However, as the years go by and a new chief executive is required—for example, because his term has come to an end or because of an unfortunate death—surely it is a prime responsibility of the chairman and the other members of the agency to appoint someone who they are absolutely satisfied will work with them and towards the objectives of the agency. Does my noble friend accept that? Surely, as long as there is consultation with the Minister, for which the amendment provides, it seems more usual that the appointment should be made by the agency itself. I am not sure that I have heard any argument against that once the years have gone by and the agency is up and running.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I understand my noble friend's point. He is very experienced in the public service and will know from that experience how such appointments are best organised and managed. It may well be that, over time, this matter is reviewed further but, at this stage, it is right that we have the process that we have set in train. As ever, we are committed to ensuring that we have proper and effective consultation in place. As I explained earlier, that is exactly how we have approached this appointment. In the longer term, his point is one on which the Government may want to reflect.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for his response to a large group of amendments tabled with one main objective, which was to explore whether there would be good governance of the new agency. The last intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, took us to the heart of the issue. It is important to get things right from the beginning. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, that when you start an agency, it is not living and breathing, it has not established its credentials, so it seems understandable that the Home Secretary would be the driving force for appointments. Indeed, as we know, there is now a chief executive-designate. We do not complain about that. Far from it, we want to ensure that the future development of the agency is effective. I should certainly like to consider that matter further at a later stage.
	We will also need to consider what the Minister said about the size of the board, which he thinks will be about 12, and whether the two members each from ACPO and the police authorities is the right proportion. It may well be that it is.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: Before the noble Baroness concludes on that point, I should like to make a further point to drive the business of chief executive appointments home. This is the first occasion; in future appointments we would expect the NPIA chairman to be on the selection panel and tasked with recruiting any future chief executive. I made clear that we do not see this as set in stone. As I said earlier, as the organisation develops, relationships will change.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: That intervention from the Minister was very helpful. We are all trying to get the same result. It is just that, as the Bill is drafted, it will not necessarily get us there. It may not need very much improvement. That is something that we can discuss during the rather long Summer Recess—at least I hope that it will be a nice, long Summer Recess; we all do, especially after this barrage of Home Office Bills.
	The Minister also responded on the method of consultation and who would be consulted. As ever, the Government want flexibility. I understand the difficulty of naming in the Bill statutory consultees—not least for the practical reason that the Minister gives that if they change their name or go out of business, how do we amend the Bill other than by new legislation? I am grateful to him for saying that the Government will consider further the point made by Ken Jones of ACPO about naming the association as a statutory consultee in a limited case within the Bill. It will be interesting to see whether discussion with ACPO bears fruit.
	Disappointingly, the Minister repeated the Government's response about the 15 per cent contribution idea. They seem to think that if one gives 15 per cent of the budget, one only ever has 15 per cent control over what is going on. That, however, was not the indication; the indication was to try to adopt the Government's preferred use of having stakeholders here, there and everywhere. I can see that I will get nowhere with this, and I shall chew on it for another day. It may never return.
	There are issues here. We will need to think about good governance to ensure that the tripartite relationship is strengthened and not unbalanced or weakened. At this stage, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Clause 1 agreed to.
	Schedule 1 [National Policing Improvement Agency]:
	[Amendments Nos. 3 to 11 not moved.]

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 12:
	Page 64, line 22, leave out from beginning to "(offence" in line 24 and insert "In section 91(2)"

Lord Bassam of Brighton: This is a technical amendment. It is already a criminal offence to stir up disaffection among members of police forces and constables of the British Transport Police and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. The Bill extends this liability to include constables of the NPIA. However, as some constables on the staff of the agency may be employees, there is also the possibility of civil action where they are induced to withhold their services. Paragraph 71(3) of Schedule 1 therefore inserts new Section 91(3) to make it clear that, for agency constables, criminal liability under Section 91 is in addition to any civil liability. The amendment simply extends that to include the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and the British Transport Police. I beg to move.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 13:
	Page 64, line 29, leave out sub-paragraph (3).
	On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 14:
	Before Clause 2, insert the following new clause—
	"REVISED POWER TO ALTER POLICE AREAS BY ORDER
	In section 32(3) of the Police Act 1996 (c. 16) (power to alter police areas by order)—
	(a) leave out "either";
	(b) in paragraph (a) for "or" substitute "and"."

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: Amendment No. 14 focuses on the Government's plans to compel police forces to merge. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, for their support for the amendment.
	The Government say that they are in favour of neighbourhood policing and local accountability. We support them in that. They say they want a police service that is fit for purpose in the 21st century. We support them in that. Those are both laudable objectives. But then the Government career off on the wrong course, which cannot achieve those objectives. They insist that police forces should be merged even where local opinion is firmly against that, even where the results could be damaging for effective policing and even when they have not given the federal alternative the opportunity to prove itself. We cannot support the Government in that.
	My amendment focuses on the importance of the Secretary of State going ahead with the merger of police forces only when he has the consent of the relevant police authorities. The report of Denis O'Connor, of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, on which the Government are relying to press ahead with their forced merger, said:
	"The constitutional implications . . . are significant".
	We agree.
	In the 1960s, when police force amalgamations were last considered, a royal commission was established that took two years to report. Legislation was introduced a year later. It was recognised that the structure of police forces is a fundamental issue on which the public, the forces themselves and their police authorities need to be properly consulted. We believe that the way in which the Government are proceeding could not be more different. The previous Home Secretary's proposals to amalgamate forces were announced last September, when he gave them just four months to respond. He attempted, in the words of the Labour chairman of the Association of Police Authorities, to "bully and bribe" authorities to agree to his proposals and to meet the deadline—a tactic that backfired spectacularly when not one authority submitted to it. In February, the Home Secretary again gave police authorities an ultimatum—this time to submit proposals for voluntary mergers within just three weeks. Again, almost all the authorities concerned refused. But the Home Secretary announced that he would proceed with compulsory amalgamations regardless.
	The basis of the general restructuring is founded on the report Closing the Gap. It has been shown that the methodology of that report is in some respects fundamentally flawed. Several academic analyses have questioned the methodology and conclusions, one of the most recent being Barry Loveday's Policy Exchange report, Size Isn't Everything. The Police Act 1996 already provides that the Secretary of State can require police forces to collaborate in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness. That renders amalgamations unnecessary, yet the Home Secretary has not used those powers. It would surely be appropriate to use them now as a more cost-effective alternative to amalgamations. Yet the Government have rejected the alternative proposals for a federated model, which were put forward by police and police authorities.
	If the Government are truly more interested in addressing an alleged inadequacy in the protective services and are less interested in moving towards a national police force, I hope that they will give alternative options the opportunity to prove their worth. The Government claim that they have rejected the idea of a national police force, but their reorganisations are moving us steadily towards that model. There would be 12 police chiefs, rather than 43, who would effectively answer to the Home Secretary and not their local communities.
	There has been no accurate costing of any of these amalgamations. But police authorities are convinced that the impact will be the loss of a significant number of police officers. I am aware that yesterday the Home Secretary in another place made it clear that the 25,000 figure quoted in the press as a potential loss of numbers was the worst-case scenario, but he did not deny that there would be losses, which was interesting.
	The financial basis of the exercise is deeply flawed. Like most reorganisations, this is likely to cost more and save less than the proponents of the plan would have us believe. The federal approach would allow greater collaboration between forces on protective services. Services such as air support, firearms training and clothing and vehicle procurement, to name but a few, could be done effectively through collaboration on a formal footing. That would have the advantage of enabling individual forces to maintain their independence and local accountability to their communities.
	I am very grateful to Surrey County Council for sending me today a copy of a speech made there on behalf of a police authority, which clearly states the commitment that Surrey has to making a federal model work. It feels that it has the resources and the ability to make it work well.
	On 15 May, the Home Secretary stated that he had been told that the federal option had been tried in several areas and had not worked particularly well. That is not what I understand from the experience of police authorities. Can the Minister say where a formal federated system has been implemented and has failed? The advantage of the federal approach, as one of the available solutions, was set out in the Association of Police Authorities' paper Joining Forces, which was submitted to the Home Office earlier this year. I understand that, so far, there has been no response from the Home Office.
	Yesterday, in another place, the Home Secretary said that he would not lay an order for enforced police mergers before the Summer Recess. He said that he would go ahead only with those where there had been a voluntary agreement. He also stressed time and again that he believes that the destination of mergers across the country should remain the same. He said:
	"The destination that has been outlined . . . is the correct one . . . I repeat that the strategic direction and the ultimate destination . . . are correct . . . the destination that we want to end up at, which was identified by my predecessor as Secretary of State, is the right one . . . I do not seek another destination".—[Official Report, Commons, 19/6/06; cols. 1058-60.]
	It is vital today to try to persuade the Government to think again. Amendment No. 14 would amend Section 32 of the Police Act 1996, so that mergers can still go ahead, but only in circumstances where the police authorities make a request to the Secretary of State for a merger and the Secretary of State believes that such a merger would be right and in the interests of the efficiency or effectiveness of policing in those areas. It has the benefit of allowing mergers to proceed where it is right that they should do so, while protecting policing from enforced mergers at the will of the Secretary of State where local opinion is firmly against his direction and local requirements would not benefit from those mergers. That must be the right way forward. I beg to move.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: Most of the debate at Second Reading, both in this House and in another place, focused on the reorganisation of police authorities. This new clause seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State will not exercise his power arbitrarily or inappropriately.
	The Police Act 1996, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, referred, states very clearly at Section 32(3):
	"The Secretary of State shall not exercise his power under this section to make alterations unless either—
	(a) he has received a request to make the alterations from the police authority for each of the areas . . . affected by them, or
	(b) it appears to him to be expedient to make the alterations in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness".
	The amendment would ensure that amalgamations were driven primarily by the police authorities themselves.
	At Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Dholakia said:
	"Policing is possible only with the consent of communities".—[Official Report, 5/6/06; col. 1055.]
	That is worth repeating again today in Committee. Artificially structured policing areas with vast geographic boundaries entirely remove the concept of communities. I disagree wholeheartedly with the Government's view that making basic command units, or BCUs, more important and embedding neighbourhood policing—which, incidentally, I support—will be all that is needed to bring policing closer to the people. Having a remote chief constable whom hardly anyone will ever see, and senior officers who will be for ever driving cars around a region as big as mine unable to make contact with BCU commanders on any meaningful eye-to-eye level very often, will only harbour the resentment already felt by many that this idea is absolutely preposterous.
	It may be appropriate for some mergers to take place—I do not dispute that—but there are other ways of forging partnerships and ensuring best practice than going hell for leather, if that is not an unparliamentary term, down the merger route. I beg the Government to look again at cross-border alliances. Geographically they can make much more sense. There is not a magic number for a strategic force size. We have seen how big forces can fail. There is much excellence in smaller forces, which can outperform their big brothers in many areas. Will the Government look at the possibility of allowing flexibility for forces to come together naturally, as federations, so that they can overcome the gap in protective services? I have to say, however, that mutual aid was always there in the past to address those very problems, as were the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad.
	A real debate on policing, rather than the tinkering of successive Acts to bring us up to date, needs to take place and all the players need to be involved. Using one inadequate report to kick-start a huge and costly reorganisation is not the best way of getting the changes that the Government require. This new clause would encourage the Secretary of State to stop, think and ruminate on how best that could be achieved.
	I was very privileged at lunchtime today to sit with a number of the most senior police officers from the United States of America, who have very carefully looked at what the Government are proposing here. They were absolutely adamant that we are going in the wrong direction. Please listen to what people are saying and make sure that we look again at this proposal.

Lord Dholakia: I am delighted to add my name to the amendment. It is a cleverly crafted amendment which meets the concerns of all those who spoke on Second Reading against the hastily devised police mergers. This is not a wrecking amendment; it would help to tighten the criteria by which the Secretary of State could merge police forces. In other words, we are not saying that the Home Secretary cannot proceed to merge; we are saying that there are better ways of doing so.
	There was the undue haste to merge police areas without adequate consultation. Then there was the threat by the previous Home Secretary that he would proceed to merge in any case. The amendment proposes that we place the matter firmly in the hands of police authorities to make such a request and that the Home Secretary decides if it is necessary in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness.
	A statement was issued yesterday, which the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, quoted, saying that plans have been delayed until the autumn. I cannot understand why something that was so important and urgent a few weeks ago that the Home Secretary was not even prepared to wait has suddenly been put on the back-burner. But there has been a public outcry about the mergers. There are legal challenges in the courts and there is a lack of a proper response to alternative arrangements, such as a federal structure.
	I thank the Minister for arranging a briefing meeting last week. I am sure we all benefited from the contribution of Sir Ronnie Flanagan. The question remains: are the Government ultimately proceeding to create a national police force, where the ultimate control remains with the Secretary of State? We have again and again seen centrally directed executive action to tackle local problems. Policing is essentially a local matter. The further away the decision-making process is, the more difficult it is to resolve the situation. I suspect that to achieve the best possible performance, which we all aspire to, the Government have gone overboard in demanding powers that are best left to the police authorities.
	The case for better performance through wider powers for the Home Secretary has not been proved. I received a letter today—I am sure that many other noble Lords also had it—from the West Mercia Police Authority. The chair of the authority, Paul Deneen JP, has this to say:
	"The Home Secretary's proposals are predicated on the need to improve Protective Services following a report entitled 'Closing the Gap' by Denis O'Connor, HMIC. The methodology and analysis of this report has been repeatedly questioned and criticised by many commentators, including Professor Tony Lawrence of Warwick University.
	The report identifies an ideal minimum overall size for Police Forces of 4000 officers or 6000 officers and staff in total. Yet West Mercia Police Authority which has 2500 officers and a little over 4000 officers and staff overall has continued to be identified as a top performing force. The performance of Protective Services, which in the main rely on the establishment of relatively small, highly specialised teams, appears to have little relationship to the overall size of the force".
	There goes the Home Office's argument for efficiency.
	It is time now, rather than waiting until late summer, for the Home Office to come up with further proposals. I suggest that the best way to proceed is to give the police authority the power to determine whether mergers are necessary and let the Home Secretary decide whether, in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness, that is an appropriate course of action. That is why we support the amendment.

Lord Hylton: This is a very important amendment. I support the noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay and Lady Harris of Richmond, in what they were saying about having a federal model of police forces and services together with specialised agencies. In the context of specialised agencies, have the Government given any thought to having the control and supervision of whole motorways under a particular body, on the analogy of the British Transport Police, who control the whole railway system?
	I am sure that my noble friend Lord Tenby would have wished to be here for this debate. All I can say on my own behalf is that April 2007 is far too soon for the beginning of police mergers, particularly if they are to be compulsory. I fear that, where that happens, there will be disorganisation and demoralisation and a less effective police service.
	I am not at all sure that the Government have appreciated that the risks facing us now from terrorism, national disasters or major civil emergencies are variable from one place to another. Obviously, they are most concentrated in the Greater London neighbourhood and are not the same in the rest of the country for very obvious reasons.
	Finally, is it still intended that there should be just one police service for the whole of Wales rather than two as at present?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I fully appreciate that this is an issue that, although not addressed in the Bill for the purposes of this amendment, has greatly exercised a lot of attention. I therefore understand why the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, tabled the amendment—so that we can more comprehensively tease out the issue. This is the first of three separate groups of amendments that relate to police force amalgamations. Before I get into the detailed response to the comments on the amendment, it may assist the Committee if I say a few words about where we are on restructuring.
	The Committee will be aware that, following publication of the Closing the Gap report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, the previous Home Secretary announced proposals to establish strategic forces in Wales and seven of the English regions. I am sure that many Members of the Committee are aware that a great deal of work was done prior to that report and indeed after it was issued. I know that the process has not been easy. Many of our county forces have long histories and are rightly a source of great pride. Therefore, I can understand the local attachment to these forces. Members of this House and of another place are properly raising issues around the funding of mergers, the equalisation of precepts and the governance of the new strategic police force.
	The new Home Secretary and the Minister with responsibility for the police rightly want to take time to consider these issues before deciding how best to proceed. Before doing so, my honourable friend Tony McNulty has been taking the opportunity to speak with many police authorities and chief constables throughout the country. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, that it is a little hard when the Government take time to listen and to respond, and then are criticised for having done so.
	I respectfully suggest that it was right for my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, coming newly to this post, being seized of a new brief, to take a moment or two to consult those who had been most closely connected and to take the temperature as to the speed and nature of change. My right honourable friend has made it clear that strategic mergers are the right way in which to improve protective services, but he acknowledged in a Statement in another place yesterday that more time was needed for discussion and dialogue on the best way of getting to that destination. As a consequence of this decision, no strategic forces—other than the voluntary merger in Cumbria and Lancashire—will come into existence on 1 April 2007. But I remind your Lordships that there are many in the police world who believe that mergers of this sort are a necessary step to bring us to a better informed and better position—not least as demonstrated by the voluntary merger of Cumbria and Lancashire.
	We know that there are continuing concerns about a number of issues, including cost, council tax and local accountability. We touched on all those when we discussed this matter at Second Reading. These issues need to be properly resolved. That is what my right honourable friend the Home Secretary and my honourable friend Tony McNulty are working towards. To allow time for this, the period of formal objections to the proposals already announced will be extended. We want to ensure that people are given a proper opportunity to comment and raise objections once all the outstanding issues of relevance are resolved and communicated. That will now determine the deadline by which objections have to be lodged.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, spoke about reductions in numbers of police officers. I am sure that I do not have to remind her that since this Government came into office, police numbers have gone up substantially. We currently stand at 141,270 police officers, as of 30 September 2005, which is an overall increase of 14,112—11.1 per cent—since March 1997. Police strength fell between 1997 and 2000, but we have made those numbers up and police officer numbers have stabilised and are doing well. So there has been a massive improvement.
	Our absolute commitment is to ensure that we have a police force that is visible, accessible and focused on the needs of the community that they are set to serve. I think there is total agreement around the Committee that the neighbourhood policing model is one with which we all are content and would wholeheartedly support.
	Amendment No. 14, with Amendments Nos. 60 and 61, which we will come on to later, seek in different ways to alter the process for making changes to police force areas. There are already perfectly adequate provisions in the Police Act for amalgamating police areas. Indeed, those very provisions were substantially revised by the last Administration in the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994. Under the 1996 Act, which was part of the last Administration's work, a merger may take place either if the police authorities concerned have volunteered, as in the case of Cumbria and Lancashire, or if the Home Secretary considers that a merger would be in the interests of the efficiency or effectiveness of policing. It was understood by the last Tory Government that that was a necessary tool for the Home Secretary to have because of the need to secure long-term security for the people of this country and, quite frankly, because the final responsibility for these issues always lies with the Home Secretary. We know the cost of what happens when others get it wrong. The Home Secretary pays the price.
	In the latter case the Home Secretary must give notice of his intention to merge forces to the affected police and local authorities, and give them a minimum of four months to submit any objections. He must then consider those objections and respond to them before an order is made. Moreover, with the mergers initiated by the Home Secretary, the necessary order is subject to the affirmative procedure, so there must be a debate and a vote in both Houses. That accountability is embedded in the process. The period for submitting objections ensures that police authorities have plenty of time to consult their local communities and take their views before deciding whether to submit any objections.
	The new clause to be inserted by Amendment No. 14 would remove both those routes, voluntary and initiated by the Home Secretary. There would not be an opportunity to make those changes. They are the two routes by which police areas can be changed. Instead, the amendment would require both that the police authorities volunteered and that the Home Secretary considered it in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness. I have no difficulty with the proposition that the Home Secretary must be satisfied that the voluntary merger will promote the efficient or effective policing of the affected area, but this new clause would also remove the ability of the Home Secretary to initiate changes to police areas where the authorities concerned have not requested them. The Home Secretary would be impotent to introduce any change, notwithstanding the fact that that change may be deemed the most appropriate for the safety and security of this country.
	It is the function of the Home Secretary to take strategic decisions about policing. That is his traditional role in the tripartite relationship. Decisions about the extent of police areas are clearly strategic in nature, and it is therefore right that the Home Secretary is able, after proper consultation and parliamentary scrutiny, to make those decisions. The Home Secretary has stressed the need for proper discussion and dialogue. Of course it would be preferable if all mergers could go through on a voluntary basis, but provision for mergers initiated by the Home Secretary has been on the statute books going back to the Police Act 1964, and indeed before that. There remains a place for such provision. I therefore invite the noble Baroness to consider whether it would be appropriate to proceed with this in any way.
	There are some specific issues—the noble Baroness raised the issue of federation—and aspersions have been cast on the quality of the report, Closing the Gap, which was undertaken by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. I disagree with the criticisms of that report. It is important to recognise that this is the first time HMIC's report has been criticised in this way. In a short time I am sure I will have the reports of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of any description praised to the skies as being unimpeachable. We would say that this report is sound and has real resonance. Although a small number of forces below the 4,000 threshold score relatively well for their size, that does not guarantee future resilience, especially against the increasingly sophisticated nature of criminality. None of those forces currently meets the acceptable standard for protective services.
	In answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, I assure him that we have looked very carefully to ensure that we can meet the needs that have been identified regarding both terrorism and the other issues—maintenance of neighbourhood and appropriate frontline policing—at the same time as responding to strategic needs. Historically, collaboration has not on the whole been effective enough. Sir Ronnie Flanagan, head of HMIC, describes existing collaborative arrangements as "woefully inadequate" and notes that they fail to deliver sustained resourcing for preventive or development work. That is the advice that we are given by Her Majesty's Inspectorate and we take it very seriously indeed. The real risk of federation or collaboration is that these solutions would merely create additional layers of bureaucracy and lines of accountability with no appreciable benefit to the public, and potentially considerable extra expense. Any federation or collaboration option must demonstrate that it can overcome those obstacles and deliver the same or greater gains in efficiency and effectiveness.
	It is worth quoting Sir Ronnie Flanagan's full comment as Members of the Committee have prayed in aid Professor Lawrence's work. Sir Ronnie says:
	"Professor Lawrence argues that smaller forces could overcome a lack of resources by collaborating with neighbouring forces. This logical conclusion was investigated in Closing the Gap, but we found such arrangements, where they existed, were woefully inadequate. Experience has shown that neighbouring forces will provide short-term support to deal with critical incidents but collaboration fails to deliver sustained resourcing for preventative or developmental work which is a particular gap we need to address. Collaboration also raises questions about governance arrangements and the additional costs which are imposed by collaboration are not met by compensating savings".
	That is trenchant advice which any Home Secretary would be ill advised to ignore. I should make it plain that the current Home Secretary does not propose so to do.
	Strategic roads policing is one of the protective services considered by HMIC in its report, Closing the Gap. Roads policing cannot be detached from the wider day-to-day policing. Therefore, we have no proposal for a separate police force along the lines of the British Transport Police. In the case of Wales—another issue that I believe the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, raised—we have put forward proposals for a single all-Wales force. We will want to consider carefully the objections received to those proposals before deciding how best to proceed. I understand the anxiety about this issue, but I respectfully suggest that this is not the moment for us to consider the restructuring of these forces, because there is other legislation which was produced by Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. On this occasion we are content to say that they were right, and we are content for that to be the legislation which holds sway.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am grateful to Members of the Committee who have supported my amendment. Naturally, I am grateful to the Minister who, as ever, has given careful and, from the Government's point of view, extremely fair attention to both the merits of her stance and, as she sees it, the demerits of mine
	I must agree to differ with the Minister's reasons for considering that my amendment is defective. She referred in particular to the problems of the federal approach and the advice that has been given to Her Majesty's Government. I have also taken advice from a wide range of constabularies around the country. Their concern for the future of policing is not the jobsworth kind of saying, "My particular constabulary is going to disappear". They are concerned about the future of this country, its safety, local accountability and effective neighbourhood policing. They should be given the opportunity to show that a formal federal option is workable and cost effective. After all, as the noble Baroness will have to accept, there are considerable costs in the forced mergers the Government have sought to adopt.
	The noble Baroness teases me—as she likes to do now and again—about the Government's record on increasing the number of police and police support officers, all of whom perform a valuable role. The overall increase is 14,000. On the worst case scenario that the Home Secretary had to recognise yesterday, we would lose 25,000 and be down by a net 9,000. He did not care to enlighten another place on what the best case scenario would be about the number that would be lost.
	There is a reasonable alternative. The Minister said that this issue is not in the Bill. As she closed her remarks, she said that there would be another time and another place to consider this and that the Government were perfectly satisfied with our legislation of 1996 and its precursor of 1994. As I said, my amendment would not prevent voluntary mergers going ahead. It is intriguing that the Government are so wedded to our legislation. The difficulty is that we did not have the plans to abuse that legislation which the Government now have by enforcing mergers.
	Looking back into history and the mists of time, I can see that on 5 July 1994, in another place, Mr Blair—not then Prime Minister—quoted Central Office research and accused us of being two-faced by saying that we had announced:
	"There are no current plans to amalgamate police forces. Amalgamations will only happen when the time is right".
	He was right; that is exactly what we said, and that is what we meant. But then he went on to say, pouring scorn upon us:
	"Many people in the police service and elsewhere believe that the time will be right when the Bill and its problems are out of the way. There will then be a wholesale amalgamation of the smaller police services. That will remove local policing further from local people".—[Official Report, Commons, 5/7/94; col. 273.]
	Well, by golly, he was right; but it is not us but Mr Blair who is doing precisely that.
	The noble Baroness says, "Give us time. We should not be accused of being an unlistening, uncaring Government; don't take us into problems because of that. We are damned if we do and damned if we don't". The difficulty is as I described in my opening remarks. Yesterday, Mr Reid, trying to be at his most cuddly self, said, "I want to have time over the summer to consider. I am going to listen. I am going to consult". But at the same time—five times in all; I spared the Committee the fifth time—he said: "The destination remains the same". Well, that destination is not the right one.
	We all want to ensure that we have the best systems in place for the most effective policing that is right for all areas of our country. We simply question whether the Government's fixation with mergers is the right way forward. This is the right place and the right time to do the right thing and ask the Government to think again about their destination of enforced mergers. I wish to test the opinion of the Committee.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 14) shall be agreed to?
	Their Lordships divided: Contents, 198; Not-Contents, 130.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
	Clause 2 agreed to.
	Schedule 2 [Amendments to the Police Act 1996]:

Baroness Harris of Richmond: moved Amendment No. 15:
	Page 71, line 4, leave out paragraphs 1 and 2.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: Amendment No. 15 stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Dholakia. I also speak in support of Amendments Nos. 18, 19 and 21. Some important players have been left out of the Bill. Earlier, we discussed the superintendents' association and the Police Federation. It is therefore difficult for me to see the Government's reasoning behind ensuring that BCUs are separate statutory constructs. BCUs are certainly important, but to deliberately put them into the Bill is unnecessary. If the intention is only to make them coterminous with local authority boundaries, I am not convinced that that needs legislation.
	Is the Minister able to help me? Wanting to put BCUs on a statutory footing rather gives the impression of preparing them for future developments. Perhaps the Secretary of State has it in mind to eventually fund BCUs directly from central Government. That would be most unwelcome, as it would undermine the already fragile tripartite relationship, which I spoke about at Second Reading. It would also undermine accountability to the public through their police authorities, and to chief officers by their BCU commanders, who could almost do what they liked with directly funded moneys. I use that as an example. It could be the beginning of an unacceptable series of events, and we do not like that idea at all. I beg to move.

Baroness Lockwood: If the amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment Nos. 16 to 21 due to the pre-emption rule.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I support Amendments Nos. 15 and 19 and shall speak to my Amendments Nos. 16 to 18, which are grouped with them. My amendments ask the Government to justify the proposals for, first, placing BCUs on a statutory basis and, secondly, setting out the number and operation of BCUs. I tabled the amendments in response to comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, on Second Reading—credit where it is due; I see him in his place. He made some pertinent remarks at col. 1062. Last Friday, he tabled some helpful amendments to this part of the Bill which essentially address the same points that I wish to raise. I know from private conversations that he has wondered whether he is going to survive my supporting him. Perhaps that works for me as well. I am not used to finding myself in such radical company, but it is an interesting time of life.
	BCUs are operational constructs, and the vast majority are already coterminous with local authority boundaries. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, I am concerned about the intention behind putting BCUs on a statutory basis and its consequences. In its briefing, ACPO said that it saw the proposal as part of the hollowing-out of the chief constable's direction and control of his or her police force that the Bill advances in general. It points out that, as ever, there is an order-making power for the Secretary of State to amend the schedule. If BCUs have a statutory basis, it surely is possible that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whoever that might be at the time of the next Budget, might announce an allocation of budget to specific BCUs for specific services. Whereas we will certainly not object to more funds being passed to BCUs, we are concerned about the Chancellor of the Exchequer having a route by which the tripartite balance of influence and direction of the police service could be upset. If the commanders of certain BCUs are given specific sums of money for which they are personally accountable as statutory bodies, that is bound to alter their relationship with chief constables and the overall responsibility for the delivery of services.
	When the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, responded at Second Reading—and I note that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, is to respond today—she stated that there was only one reason why the Government were putting BCUs on to a statutory footing, which was,
	"to mandate coterminosity with local authority boundaries".—[Official Report, 5/6/06; col. 1104.]
	Even if that is the only reason for the Government's proposal in Schedule 2, a by-product of that proposal is the potential to disrupt the relationship between a BCU and its chief constable. It could have a detrimental effect on local accountability if BCU commanders have to account only to central Government for how that funding is used.
	I note that the Association of Police Authorities recommends that, to help to ensure that accountability remains local, there should be a provision by which chief officers should consult police authorities before appointing BCU commanders. I have tabled Amendment No. 18 to achieve just that. I agree with the association that this should not interfere with direct managerial accountability between BCU commanders and chief officers, but it should help authorities to maintain an oversight of policing style at that level, particularly that of neighbourhood policing.
	Whatever happens as a result of the Division a few minutes ago on the Police Act 1996, it is likely that there will be some new strategic forces as a result of voluntary mergers. Also, I would hope that some forces would act in a formal federation, at least until the Government have determined the way forward. Therefore, it is likely that the public will increasingly see the local BCU commanders, rather than chief officers of police, as the figureheads of local policing. To ensure that the views of local people are represented, it would be helpful if authorities had a voice in appointing local police leaders.
	Amendments Nos. 16 and 17 simply replace a "shall" with a "may"; as a result, police areas could be divided for operational purposes into two or more BCUs, but that would not be compulsory. BCUs could be coterminous with local authority areas, as provided for by paragraph 1(1) of new Schedule 1A, but, again, that would not be compulsory.
	The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, has tabled amendments. I added my name in support of Amendment No. 19, because, I assume, it is a probing amendment. I was intrigued by his first sub-paragraph, which gives the police authority a role in appointing the officer who is to be in command of the BCU. I look forward to hearing what discussions the noble Lord has had on this with the APA and, perhaps, ACPO. When the Minister responds, I would be grateful if he indicated whether he believes that that is an appropriate role for the police authority to play and whether the Government believe that the measure would go too far in interfering in a chief officer's operational duties in deciding how to deploy his resources.
	Amendment No. 21 refers to the distribution of resources for each BCU. I wonder what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, intends to be the basis on which police authorities would expect allocations to be made. Would it be by size of population, special needs—and, if so, what would they be?—existing levels of crime or an assessment of future levels of crime as it may occur?
	All of us in our amendments refer repeatedly to "councils". I have been reminded today by my own county council in Surrey that we have not always been particularly clear whether, by "local councils", we mean to include county councils, because, as they say robustly, county council work is all about local accountability. Perhaps we should bear that in mind in our own amendments, but, in particular, it should be made clear in the Government's response. It is important that the Government justify their proposals in this part of the Bill.

Lord Harris of Haringey: I will speak to Amendments Nos. 19, 21 and 57 in my name. On Amendment No. 21, which relates to BCU resources, I do not know whether I automatically subscribe to the conspiracy theory that the noble Baronesses, Lady Harris of Richmond and Lady Anelay, have put forward about what may or may not be in the next Chancellor's Budget. However, I have noticed that in previous Chancellors' Budgets, the direct allocation of resources—

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: As we are in a teasing mode, I cannot help but say that I hope that the Official Report does not change the order of the noble Lord's words. He talked about the "next Chancellor", rather than the "next Budget". Perhaps he knows more than I do about the future of the Labour leadership.

Lord Harris of Haringey: I doubt that. I have to say that it is slightly concerning to have been described as "radical" by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and I am not quite sure whether I should be flattered or worried by such a comparison.
	In previous Budgets, the present Chancellor, who may or may not be the next Chancellor or Chancellor for life, has made it clear that he has been keen to allocate resources directly to basic units—in some cases to schools and in some cases to hospitals—so as to be seen to deliver particular elements of government policy. I understand the reason why central Government would wish to do that, but it raises some difficult issues when it is applied to policing, particularly given the views that many of us hold about the importance of the tripartite relationship—the balance—between the Home Office, local accountability through the police authority and the responsibility of the chief officer in respect of operational matters. The purpose of Amendment No. 21 is to ensure that, if BCUs are statutory, the Home Office's allocation of resources will not be able substantially to distort the plans and allocations that would otherwise have been the case.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, asked how I would envisage the allocation of resources for each basic command unit being determined and what factors might be included in that. Due to the risk of boring your Lordships—and I am keen to make progress for a variety of reasons—I shall not go into the lengthy process that the Metropolitan Police Authority has on two previous occasions, to my certain knowledge, engaged in, in terms of consulting on the allocation of resources, and in particular the number of police officers, to the London boroughs. On those occasions, a number of different factors were taken into account. I certainly would not suggest that the process was perfect, but it was intended to balance population, physical area, size of area and some of the social and crime factors that applied in particular areas. So, it is possible to do that. It is not a simple process, but I—and this is the purpose of Amendment No. 21—would not want to see something that would be seen clearly as overriding local and force priorities as a result of a change in the status of BCUs.
	Amendments Nos. 19 and 57 essentially say the same thing as each other, but are alternatives which depend on what happens to other amendments before the Committee. The point of these amendments is to ensure not only that the appointment of BCU commanders is very much influenced by the views of the police authority, but that the views of the local councils in the areas concerned are taken into account. This is important because the basic command units, particularly those with responsibility for a locality, are the public face of policing in those areas; they are the key policing commanders in respect of those areas. How they relate to all the other agencies, such as local authorities and health services, will be critical to the way in which partnerships will operate in those areas. Because BCU commanders are such public-facing individuals, it is important that the police authority, which will set the overall tone, has a role in appointing them. It is also right and proper that there should be some consultation with the relevant local councils. I shall not get into the question of precisely which ones will be relevant in each case.
	During my period as chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, some small steps were made in this direction, in that, when it was known that there was to be a vacancy for a borough commander, the commissioner would write to local Members of Parliament, to the local authority chief executive and to the local authority council leader to seek views on the required nature of the post holder, given the tasks that those individuals saw as being faced by the police commander in that area. When that happened—sometimes people forgot to send such letters, which was perhaps unfortunate—I know that the local authorities and the Members of Parliament welcomed the opportunity to say what they saw as being priorities. That was helpful in influencing the decision ultimately made by the commissioner on who would take on basic command responsibilities in those areas. That is why I proposed Amendments Nos. 19 and 57, and I commend them to the Committee.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: When I moved Amendment No. 15, I indicated that I would speak to Amendments Nos. 18, 19 and 21. Now that those amendments have been spoken to by others, I shall finish my points on each of them.
	Amendment No. 18 is very important. Police authority members know their areas best and are therefore best placed to advise the chief constable on the skills and personality needed in the crucial role of a BCU commander in a particular area. Speaking as a former chair of a police authority, I can say that successive chief constables consulted me and, as a good democrat, I consulted my colleagues on the suitability of a particular officer to a BCU post. On occasion, we both got it wrong, but the principle was upheld and we took the responsibility jointly and seriously. I am glad to say that the "getting it wrong" bit did not happen very often.
	The proposals in Amendment No. 19 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, are, again, good practice and in the spirit of wider consultation with various local government partners. BCU commanders are seen as mini chief constables in their areas, and it is to them that local authorities turn when devising their community safety strategies.
	Finally, I turn to Amendment No. 21. As previously suggested, we are concerned that accountability at BCU level should be of the highest standard. To achieve that, it is vital that police authorities play a full part in the arrangements surrounding the strategic priorities to be set for the BCUs. In the past, these have been set by the chief constable and the police authority together, and the amendment lays down the importance of the roles of the police authority and chief constable in ensuring that it is they, not the BCU commander, who allocate resources and determine the BCU's plans and objectives.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: This is an interesting group of amendments. In a sense, they draw very heavily on the experience of two very distinguished former—current in the case of my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey—members of police bodies.
	The amendments all relate to paragraphs 1 and 2 of Schedule 2 to the Bill, which seek to place basic command units on a statutory footing. Before I get to the substance of the amendments, it may help the Committee if I explain the rationale for this provision. The changes being proposed for basic command units are designed solely to enshrine in law the principle of coterminosity with local authorities. So I argue that, at this point, all other conspiracy theories about this provision fall away.
	Tackling crime and anti-social behaviour is not the exclusive responsibility of the police. A wide range of partners have a key role to play, but the central partnership is that between the police and local authorities. I think that there is now general agreement that this partnership will work best if the two agencies work within common boundaries. That is already the case with the great majority of basic command units, but it is open to any newly appointed chief constable to redraw the map as he or she thinks fit. These provisions will ensure that there is proper consultation with crime and disorder reduction partnerships and local criminal justice board partners and will establish the presumption that BCU and local authority boundaries must be coterminous. We have absolutely no other motive in bringing forward these provisions. They are not a Trojan horse that will some day lead to BCUs unilaterally declaring themselves independent from their forces. So far as we are concerned, BCUs are an integral part of a force and, as such, must be managed by the chief constable.
	It is against that background that I turn to the detail of the amendments. Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 would remove the obligation for each police area to be divided into BCUs. It is essential that there is an effective command structure beneath the force level, and the BCU structure provides precisely that. Given many of the concerns expressed in the context of restructuring about strategic forces being remote from the communities that they serve, I am sure that it is not the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, the noble Baronesses, Lady Harris and Lady Anelay, or my noble friend Lord Harris that the entire policing of an existing county force, let alone one of the new strategic forces, should be controlled out of the force headquarters rather than through the medium of a number of BCUs.
	Similarly, I cannot support Amendment No. 17. This would drive a massive hole through the provision, as it would leave it to the discretion of the chief constable to decide whether to draw the force's BCU boundaries to match those of the local authorities in the area. I spent a lot of time in local government as a local authority leader. We were for ever dealing with these boundary issues with regard to our local authority area and trying to work as closely as we could with others. I think that the provision to have BCUs aligned in the way that we seek makes good sense in local government management terms and in tackling crime and disorder issues.
	I am intrigued by Amendments Nos. 18, 19, 21 and 57, which have all been spoken to. I now understand better than I did before his explanation what my noble friend Lord Harris is intending to achieve. Amendments Nos. 18 and 19 relate to the appointment of BCU commanders. One would require chief constables to consult local authorities before their appointment; the other would provide for joint appointments after consultation with local authorities. Amendment No. 21 gets us into the territory of the setting of BCU objectives and resources.
	I know that concerns have been expressed about this provision in the Bill by the Association of Police Authorities and others, not because they disagree with the principle of coterminosity but because of concerns about where statutory BCUs may lead. The APA briefing that noble Lords received before Second Reading said as much. It stated:
	"We are . . . not persuaded that it is necessary to legislate for this. We are concerned that the real purpose in putting BCUs on a statutory footing is to enable unwelcome developments, such as direct funding".
	That is not the direction of travel. In our view, Amendments Nos. 18, 19 and 21 are unwelcome developments.
	We have purposefully avoided making provision in the Bill for the appointment of BCU commanders. Under the Police Act 1996, responsibility for appointing the chief constable, deputy chief constable and assistant chief constables of a force properly rests with the police authority. Other appointments further down the management chain, including those of BCU commanders, are rightly the operational responsibility of the chief constable. I heard what the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, and my noble friend Lord Harris said about these matters. That may well be acceptable practice and desirable in getting the right calibre of appointment but, in terms of the chain of command and overall responsibility, it is right that operationally the appointments rest with the chief constable.
	These amendments begin to encroach on that responsibility. We are all for having a debate about the proper balance between the roles and responsibilities of chief constables and police authorities and, for that matter, the Home Secretary, but we should not disturb that balance lightly, and certainly not without full consultation with the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Chief Police Officers' Staff Association. For those reasons, we cannot support the amendments.
	I make the same point in relation to Amendment No. 21. It is for the chief constable to determine the allocation of resources between the operational commands in his or her force. There may be a case for expanding the policing plan, drafted by the chief constable but issued in the name of the police authority, to include information about the policing objectives at the BCU level. It is perhaps worth reminding ourselves that new Section 6ZB of the Police Act already gives sufficient scope to enable that to be carried out, so good-quality liaison consultation and the passing of information about broader objectives at a lower level can already happen without Amendment No. 21, which takes us rather further.
	We would clearly want to consult carefully both ACPO and the APA before taking a definitive and final view on these matters. For the reasons that we have set out, I urge the Benches opposite and my noble friend not to press their amendments. We understand entirely the debate that they are trying to stimulate, but we think that the current arrangements are fit for purpose and will serve us well, notwithstanding other areas of good practice that have been developed and incorporated by police authorities.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: Notwithstanding the Minister's suggestion that we have conspiracy theories—perish the thought—I am not entirely convinced by his argument. As far as I am aware, it is still the case that money to run police forces goes through police authorities. The Minister said that chief constables allocate resources. That is done in conjunction with police authorities.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I accept that point, but the chief constable clearly has the responsibility to bring those matters before the police authority.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: Indeed, it is very much the responsibility of police authorities to make sure that the force is being run properly. To enable that to happen, it is a very good idea that police authorities should have some locus in choosing the very BCU commanders who will be using up most of the resources of the force.
	I am still not entirely convinced that putting BCUs on the face of the Bill is necessary. We shall come back to that on Report. The chain of command is understandable. I understand exactly what the Minister said. The chief constable must direct; he has direction and control of the force. But it is wise for the chief constable to take cognisance of what police authorities have to say about the abilities of the various commanders who he decides will sit on BCUs.
	This was an interesting trawl through some of the amendments. As I have said, we will come back to that matter and maybe others on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 16 to 21 not moved.]

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 22:
	Page 72, line 40, leave out paragraph 3.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I should explain as a matter of courtesy to the Committee that a short while ago I gave notice to the Front Benches and to the Deputy Chairman that I would not be moving Amendment No. 20. When listening to the Minister's response to the previous group of amendments, I thought that it would be precipitate to discuss the amendment at that stage. I want to make progress for exactly the same reasons as the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and perhaps a substantial number of your Lordships because I will not have the opportunity to watch the match tonight between England and Sweden, which I understand others may be able to do in another part of this building on a big screen—lucky them. I hope that my colleagues will let me know if there is a change to the score throughout any part of that occasion. But I am keen to make progress.
	In moving Amendment No. 22, I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 24 to 30 and Amendment No. 32, all of which stand in my name. A large number of amendments in this group have also been tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. I welcome them all. They are all extremely useful amendments, particularly because they focus in far more detail on some of the issues that I hope to raise. I shall listen carefully when those amendments are presented, and may come back later and ask one or two questions if they have raised new issues that I have not considered when drafting my own speaking notes. This group of amendments will be one of the most crucial in Part 1. I say one of the most crucial because there are some important ones on police directions, too.
	My amendments are intended to probe the serious issues raised in Schedule 2 regarding the Government's intentions in shaping the membership of police authorities. Their role is to represent the interests of all local people, businesses and communities working with the police to secure the maintenance of an efficient, effective and locally accountable police force. That definition must be right because I took it from my own Surrey police authority's website.
	My amendments fall into six sub-groups. First, to question the extension of the Secretary of State's powers generally and whether it is appropriate to place all matters regarding membership of police authorities into secondary legislation. Indeed, I note that the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee concluded at paragraph 20 that it considered it inappropriate for the Bill to leave so much to subordinate legislation.
	Secondly, who should decide membership of the police authorities—the Secretary of State, direct election, councils? Who should it be? Thirdly, should magistrates retain their place as of right or be cast into the melting pot of selection among all-comers? Fourthly, should the chairman and vice-chairman be appointed by the Secretary of State or elected by the police authority? Fifthly, what allowances should be paid to members? Finally, the amendment argues that the regulations on this section should be by an affirmative, not a negative statutory instrument.
	The concern that underpins all my amendments is that the provisions of this part of Schedule 2 represent a constitutional change. The Secretary of State is extending his powers so far that there could be a significant shift in favour of the Home Secretary in the balance of power within the tripartite relationship between the Home Secretary, chief officers, and police authorities.
	Amendment No. 22 would delete paragraph 3, which amends the 1996 Act such that the detailed provisions for the composition of police authorities, the selection and appointment of members, the choice of a chairman and the payment of members will be set down in regulations instead of being on the face of the Act as they are now. The flexibility that that gives the Secretary of State means in effect that he can extend his control as and when he pleases by way of statutory instrument to shape police authorities. We do not accept that that is appropriate. The Home Office has suggested that secondary legislation will stipulate that police authorities will still be able to elect their own chair and vice chairs subject to a competency test and that the remaining provisions are designed to make appointments more flexible and less cumbersome.
	When the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, replied to our Second Reading debate, she said that outside London, the chairmen of police authorities would continue to be appointed by members of the authorities. Why then make the changes in this Bill? Why not leave well alone and put the appointment clearly in the hands of the police authority? The noble Baroness's assurance does not answer the fundamental objection that the balance of power is altered in the statute in favour of the Home Secretary. Future Home Secretaries might be inclined to use these powers differently. After all, there have been so many Home Secretaries appointed by the Government in the past few years that I am losing count. Who knows who the next one will be? Perhaps it will be the noble Baroness, the Minister. I am sure that we in this House would welcome that. We would trust her to carry out her assurances but we cannot necessarily say the same of others.
	Amendments Nos. 29, 30 and 32 would ensure that police authorities continued to elect their own chairmen and vice chairmen. I note that the Delegated Powers Committee report at paragraph 20 recommended in particular that the Bill should specify by whom the members and chairman should be appointed. Will the Government accept that recommendation, even if they do not accept the basic proposal that this should be in primary, not secondary legislation?
	Why should the Secretary of State impose the competency test? Would it not be better for him to leave it to police authorities to ensure that appropriate competency-based appointments and selection arrangements are in place before any member is appointed to an authority? There is then a built-in guarantee that any person elected by the authority would already have passed a competency test.
	Amendments Nos. 25 to 27 draw attention to the question of who should be members of a police authority. At one stage, the Government said that they were considering introducing direct election of all members. Will the Minister say why that idea was abandoned? Paragraph 3 provides that there will be only two categories of members: councillors and other persons. What balance will there be between the appointment of councillors and other members? How will the membership be allocated by area? In what proportion? Surely this will be of great importance after any mergers take place.
	How will the Secretary of State make decisions on how the long list of potential appointees is whittled down to a short list? Will he give his reasons for rejecting people from the short list? If not, why not? Although this is a large group of amendments, which is taking me some time to spell out—for which I apologise—I ought to insert a big thank you to the Association of Police Authorities, which took the time and care to come and brief me recently. This is one of the very points it raised in its comprehensive briefing.
	The Government are removing the current category of magistrate members. While the Home Office suggests that magistrates can continue to sit on police authorities as independent members, the Association of Police Authorities has briefed noble Lords that it strongly considers that magistrates should remain as a category of membership in their own right, not least because of the valuable expertise they bring to authorities, particularly their links to the criminal justice system. Magistrates have invaluable local knowledge, too—otherwise they would not have been appointed to their local bench in the first place. If the Government are keeping the appointments system rather than introducing a system of direct election, why throw away the guarantee of effective magisterial members? Why abandon a system that has worked well?
	Cantering towards the end, Amendment No. 24 would ensure that magistrates would therefore remain members of police authorities in their own right. Amendment No. 28 probes whether the Secretary of State should have the power by regulation to set the payment of allowances and expenses to members. Why does he wish to put control of this into central hands by secondary legislation? Surely it would be better to leave these matters to local decision-making, to reflect local conditions?
	Finally, the changes that can be affected by paragraph 3 have sufficient constitutional importance that they should only be made by the affirmative resolution procedure. I see that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee's report agrees with that at paragraph 20, where it says,
	"if the number of members is to be left to subordinate legislation, any regulations specifying a number for police authorities generally should be subject to affirmative procedure".
	Can the Minister say whether the Government intend to accept that recommendation? I beg to move.

Baroness Lockwood: I have to point out that if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 23 to 34 under the pre-emption rule.

Baroness Henig: I speak to all the amendments standing in my name, in particular Amendments Nos. 23, 31 and 40. I am quite new to this stage of proceedings, so I hope that Members will bear with me if I do not get the technicalities correct. I start by asking whether, with the permission of the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, I can elect not to move Amendment No. 35. I see that the noble Baroness is agreeable.
	Like the previous speaker, I am alarmed by clauses which move key constitutional measures from primary to secondary legislation so that they become subject to regulations made by the Secretary of State. I am particularly concerned about proposals to deal in this way with the membership of police authorities. In general terms, however, key principles, powers and functions which guarantee the continuation of the tripartite relationship should remain in primary legislation. That is one of my key points in speaking to these amendments.
	Amendment No. 23 is intended to spell out, in primary legislation, how a police authority should be constituted. Some key principles here are based on the successful operation of police authorities in the past 11 years. I tabled this amendment in the sure knowledge that police authorities have been effective, one of the reasons for which is that they have been more focused bodies. The reason for limiting membership from 13 to 23 is that I genuinely believe that the larger a police authority becomes, the more difficult it is to have the strategic focus which has stood police authorities in such great stead. They have operated more and more like non-executive boards of directors, holding chief constables to account. That model is appropriate for police authorities, and something I want primary legislation to underline.
	I draw your Lordships' attention to subsection (2)(a), which is fundamental to the success achieved by police authorities in the past 10 or 11 years. It has meant that they have to be constituted along the lines of proportionality to the political make-up of their areas and sub-regions. That has meant that police authorities have operated on consensual lines, operating politically but not party-politically. That was one of the great changes intended when new legislation was passed in the early 1990s. It has turned out to be correct: party politics have played no part in police authority operations. In passing—it is nothing to do with my amendment—we must stand against anything that would politicise policing, and I have some worries about direct elections in that respect. Subsection (2)(a) has been one of the major subsections underlining how police authorities have matured and become effective as organisations. It ought to be in primary legislation.
	On subsection (2)(b), police authorities have operated on the basis that they need to be as diverse as possible. It has been noticeable that the more diverse the authority and the more communities they have represented, the more successful they have been. It is absolutely essential that that should be spelt out in the Bill. I think that what I am trying to achieve in Amendment No. 23 is fairly clear.
	Amendment No. 31 follows my theme that we all want to uphold the tripartite relationship. But it is no use just saying that: we must act in accordance with our words. One of the major factors underpinning local accountability is a police authority being able to appoint its own chair and vice-chair. I cannot believe that that should have anything to do with Secretary of State level. It must be dealt with at local level; it gives ownership to local people and Amendment No. 31 therefore spells out that a police authority should elect its chair and vice-chair. Even if the Minister were to stand up and say, "That is not the intention; the intention is to have flexibility", it may be the intention in five or 10 years' time. We cannot say what the intentions of future governments might be. Home Secretaries should be in no way involved in the election of the chair and vice-chair of a local police authority. Echoing the previous speaker, appropriate competency-based appointment and selection arrangements should be in place before members are appointed to authorities. That is how to deal with competence. My amendment should be read as endorsing that principle.
	There is a parallel provision to Amendment No. 31, reflecting arrangements in the Metropolitan Police Authority. I will not speak to that at any length, because I obviously have no experience of that authority, but it is to duplicate the provisions for authorities operating outside London.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: The amendments in this large group deal with membership of police authorities. I listened carefully and attentively to what the noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay and Lady Henig, said in support of their amendments. I particularly support Amendment No. 22, but I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 23, 24 and 31 which are also tabled in my name.
	Amendment No. 22 deals with a dangerous concept: some future Secretary of State can by a stroke of a pen irrevocably change the carefully constructed make-up of police authorities. We face the spectre of the Secretary of State taking totally unnecessary powers. What will happen if we get the larger police authorities envisaged by the amalgamations that we so vehemently oppose? They will be unrepresentative of local communities, yet, under the Bill, the Secretary of State can add, subtract or otherwise amend the membership of police authorities. That is a very dangerous concept. Alterations in authority numbers should not be made without a reasoned debate in both Houses.
	Why should the Secretary of State be able to appoint members of selection panels? How much more work does he need? He has enough on his plate at the moment and does not need to start meddling with selection panels. Every member of the selection panels that I chaired over a number of years was carefully and appropriately chosen from among their colleagues and thoroughly trained to the same standard. They knew their law. I pay tribute to the enormous help given to all police authorities in this matter by the Association of Police Authorities. Therefore, there is no need for the Secretary of State to do something that is the responsibility of the police authority.
	It is the responsibility of the members of police authorities to choose their chair and vice chair. At Second Reading, I spoke of the long battle I had when stand-alone police authorities were constructed. We had to persuade the Secretary of State that it was wrong for him to tell police authorities who should be their chair. I strongly oppose any power to change that sensible way of going about the selection of chairs of police authorities. I strongly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, said on that point.
	Amendment No. 23 covers the appointment of police authority members. It specifies where they should come from and the number of members needed to fulfil the police authority's statutory duties. It is necessary to ensure that police authorities for large, amalgamated forces—should they ever come into being—have a sufficient number of members to cover a wide geographic area and do what the Government want them to do. The Government have promised that there will be places for local authorities at district level as well as at county or unitary level. I do not believe that even 23 members will be enough. Police authorities have been successful in making sure that their members are fully representative of their diverse communities. I hope that Amendment No. 23 eventually finds favour with the Government.
	I was very fortunate in the magistrates who sat on my police authority. Their varied experience and commitment were enormously helpful, and when we had difficult times—there were some—the magistrates encouraged, enthused and played a totally non-political part in our decision-making. They played a full part in all our deliberations, and I valued their presence enormously, which is why I put my name to Amendment No. 24.
	I have already spoken to Amendment No. 31, which provides for the election of the chair. It is fundamental for police authorities.

Lord Harris of Haringey: I intend to speak briefly in support of Amendments Nos. 23, 31, 33, 36 and 38, to which I put my name, and to Amendment No. 37—to which, if I did not put my name to it, I meant to.
	The principle has been made extremely clear. There is an importance in having these matters in primary legislation, not because we have any doubts at all about the present Home Secretary's benign intent in how police authorities operate, but because, several successors down the road, if these matters are dealt with in secondary legislation, it will be that much easier to make changes that could seriously disrupt the tripartite arrangements and the balance of membership of the police authorities.
	On Amendment No. 23, it is important that there is political proportionality among the elected members—those who are councillors or, in the case of the Metropolitan Police Authority, who are members of the London Assembly. People need to understand that there is a choice between having political balance and representing areas, and guaranteeing that every district or local authority will have a seat on a police authority. You cannot do both without having enormous police authorities that are far larger than anything we are contemplating here. If each one has one representative, then that representative would be from the majority party there, and that is likely to mean that the smaller parties are not fully represented. Furthermore, sizes may differ greatly. In the West Midlands, for example, some authorities are very much larger than others.
	This is a serious dilemma and a choice has to be made about whether we are looking for political balance or for every local authority to have a representative. Simply providing for every local authority to have a representative will make it more difficult for the authority to take a strategic overview of the direction of the force and will not improve matters. There is a choice. I think that Amendment No. 23 goes correctly in the direction of political balance. The other part of the provision is also critical. It ensures that there is some representation of the diversity of the communities and the range of people who need to be represented on a police authority. It is largely through the independent members on police authorities that the vast majority of black and minority ethnic members of police authorities have been appointed. That is not universally so, but it is largely so.
	The points have all been made about the importance of police authorities owning the election of their own chair.
	I shall refer briefly to Amendments Nos. 33 and 38, which require that if there are changes in any of these provisions, the Association of Police Authorities should be one of the bodies consulted. Other than that, I think that all the points have been made on these amendments.

Lord Hylton: I support the principle set out in Amendments Nos. 29 and 31 that authorities should elect their own chairmen and vice chairmen.
	I should, however, like to say slightly more about Amendment No. 24. I have never been a magistrate myself. On the other hand, my late father was a magistrate for about half his life, and my noble friend Lord Tenby is probably the longest serving magistrate in your Lordships' House. It is important to have magistrates on these authorities because they are as much aware as most people, perhaps more, of the types of crime that are happening and reaching the prosecution stage. Magistrates also have the benefit of seeing how police constables and other police officers actually function as witnesses when cases come to court. So, for all those reasons, I very much hope that Amendment No. 24 will commend itself to the Government.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: May I say what a wide-ranging and important consensual debate this series of amendments has brought about? Some of the Government's responses have already been foreshadowed in our discussion about flexibility. I endorse the comment by my noble friend Lady Henig that one of the wonderful things about police authorities has been that they have been non-party political, in the main. We greatly value that. All the amendments relate to the police authorities and their membership.
	Amendment No. 22 would entirely remove the provisions relating to police authority membership, although I understand why the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, pushes the point. The measures provide for greater flexibility in the appointment process by repealing the complex and cumbersome arrangements set out in the Police Act 1996. In past discussions with your Lordships, there seemed to be an understanding that there was unnecessary complexity in the 1996 Act and that it would greatly benefit from change. I do not think that what the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said about that today detracts from that general belief.
	The regulation-making powers specify that police authorities should be made up of independent members and councillor members, and that councillor members should be in the majority. It is important to remember that that is not being changed. Aside from this, they allow flexibility in the size of individual police authorities. I wholeheartedly agree with the comments made by my noble friend Lady Henig that police authorities cannot operate effectively if the membership is too large. In the longer term, we envisage that strategic police authorities will have about 23 members. We must accept, however, that the membership will vary from police area to police area and is subject to the outcome of the review of force structures, because we must reflect the needs of the particular area. I assure the Committee that the minimum number of police authority members will be 17, as now, so there will be no change in that respect.
	Our approach in paragraphs 3 and 5 of Schedule 2 is wholly consistent with the more general move to make primary legislation more flexible. As the Delegated Powers Committee has acknowledged, there are many precedents for matters relating to the constitution of statutory bodies to be left to regulations. Just in case someone thinks that we did not read the whole report properly and that we are being selective, and in order to be fair, I also refer to the next passage. It says:
	"However, a police authority has a key role to play in the delicate constitutional balance between the Secretary of State, the police authority and the Chief Constable. The composition of the authority therefore is more significant than that of many other statutory bodies".
	I wholly endorse those sentiments.
	The Committee went on to make specific recommendations. It recommended that the Bill should specify by whom the members and the chairman shall be appointed, a matter raised by noble Lords. It further recommended that if—I emphasise "if"—the number of members is to be left to subordinate legislation, any regulations specifying a number of police authorities generally should be subject to the affirmative procedure. I reassure noble Lords—and, I hope, give all noble Lords who have spoken pleasure when I say—that the Government are ready to give these recommendations favourable consideration.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I hesitate to interrupt the Minister when she is trying to give us something we like, but when she says that the Government are minded to accept the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Committee, I am reminded of its first recommendation, in which it considers it,
	"inappropriate for the bill to leave so much to subordinate legislation".
	The rest of its recommendations are based on the idea that the Government would do that if they were in doubt, as it is the "least worst" option. Are the Government minded to consider between now and the next stage of the Bill whether so much should be shifted to subordinate legislation?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: We think that the balance is about right at the moment, particularly if we use the affirmative procedure as I have indicated in those matters. However, I also reassure noble Lords that we pay the closest attention to the debate and discussions that we have in this House about these matters, particularly bearing in mind that so many who speak have real practical experience; I am thinking of the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, and my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey—almost a brother Member of the House by name, if in no other way—and my noble friend Lady Henig.
	I cannot say from the Dispatch Box that there will be change, but I can say that we will listen very carefully to what has been said. We think the balance is about right and that it is right to move from the negative procedure to the affirmative procedure on several of the issues highlighted by the amendments. I anticipate that that will deliver some comfort to all those taking part in this debate. Obviously we will continue to consider what has been said. I think it would be wrong to suggest to the noble Baroness that there will be more movement, but I certainly assure the Committee that we continue to consider these issues.
	Amendments Nos. 23, 29 to 32 and 34—I appreciate that Amendment No. 35 has been withdrawn—and Amendment No. 36 all touch on the issues raised by the Delegated Powers Committee. If the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and my noble friend Lady Henig will agree not to press them, I would hope that we could move in the direction of the committee's proposals in time for Report. I cannot offer the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, as much comfort on these amendments as I can on other amendments in the group—several noble Lords have spoken to Amendment No. 24, for instance, which the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, has supported in view of the valuable contribution made by magistrates—but we are not convinced that retaining the separate category of magistrate members is necessary. The decision to remove this category was not taken lightly, but it allows the flexibility to broaden the skills and experience base of the membership. Ring-fencing a number of seats on police authorities for magistrates inevitably limits the scope to appoint non-councillor members with the widest possible range of relevant skills and experience.
	Magistrates will still be able to apply for appointment to police authorities as independent members, as I hope I made clear at Second Reading, and I hope that a proportion of the current magistrate members will choose to do so. Magistrate members have made a very positive contribution to the work of police authorities over the past few years, which we celebrate and value. Our decision to remove the separate category of magistrate members is in no way a reflection on the contribution that they make. We believe that there is no longer any justification for dedicated magistrate members. I accept that they bring a wider criminal justice perspective to the work of the police authorities, but on that basis a case could be made for the chief Crown prosecutor or members of the judiciary to sit on the public authority.
	The core functions of a police authority are to maintain an efficient and effective force and to hold the chief constable to account for the exercise of his or her functions—a point made very powerfully by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond. Magistrates do not necessarily have the skill sets and competences to carry out these functions, although many magistrates have precisely those skills. They are better able to make a contribution through other fora. They are strongly encouraged to participate in crime and disorder reduction partnerships. This is the most appropriate forum to ensure that magistrates are regularly informed about the plans of local agencies in areas which impact on criminal justice and about initiatives that are being taken. By the same token, magistrates' knowledge and experience of the criminal justice system provides a useful input into the community safety strategies prepared by the crime and disorder reduction partnerships. These partnerships are the natural place to ensure the input of the magistracy to local decisions about crime and disorder priorities and initiatives.
	Amendments Nos. 25, 26 and 27 provide that, instead of police authorities composed of councillor and independent members, there should be directly elected members or a single directly elected police commissioner or sheriff. We consulted on the option of directly elected police authorities in the November 2003 consultation paper, Policing: Building Safer Communities Together. I have to tell Members of the Committee that there was an almost unanimous rejection of that option.
	A number of objections were raised, including, first, the danger of extremist groups obtaining representation, particularly if there was a low turnout. If we needed that underscored, one has only to look at certain elections that have taken place in certain parts of London where extremist groups, with which no one in this House would feel entirely comfortable, are a presence. It is a real problem. Secondly, there is also potential for single issue groups to dominate. Thirdly, there could be a move to a more short-term approach. Fourthly, there is potential for the politicisation of accountability bodies. If there is one thing on which everyone in this debate seems to have agreed—although I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has remained silent on it—it is that police authorities should not become the party-political football of any party in delivering safety and security. Knowing the noble Baroness's strong views on these sorts of issues, I cannot believe that she could possibly disagree with the good sense of that comment.
	The amendments are also short on detail. How would these police commissioners be elected? Will it be by the first-past-the-post system, the alternative vote, or some other method? How long will be the term of office? How will their functions differ from those of existing police authorities? Looking at the list of elections we have already, I know that some people think that we can never have too much of a good thing. We have elections for MPs, county councillors, district community councillors, parish councillors, MEPs, mayors, the Greater London Assembly, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, parent governors on school governing bodies and so on. There is a strong question about what the case is for elections in this instance. I say to the noble Baroness that this is one area where there are no empirical data to suggest that this would be a sound way to proceed. I agree that there is a need for strong local accountability but direct elections are not the answer in this context. Police authorities need to work closely with local authorities in their areas in tackling local community safety issues. Having councillors on police authorities embeds that link. We know that this partnership working has delivered real results and improvements to the people about whom we all care.
	When we reach other provisions in the Bill, I will set out in detail how we are strengthening accountability at a local level. In brief, however, we are strengthening the effectiveness of crime and disorder reduction partnerships. In particular, we will ensure that the elected local authority members responsible for community safety issues play a full part in setting community safety priorities. Those priorities will be determined only after full consultation with local communities. The CDRPs will also be subject to periodic scrutiny by local authority scrutiny committees and inspection by the new inspectorate for justice, community safety and custody. We also propose that the basic command unit commanders and other senior representatives of the local authority hold regular public briefing sessions to respond to issues raised by local residents.
	Finally, the Bill establishes the community call for action to trigger intervention by the local authority scrutiny committee if community safety issues have not been adequately addressed by the police or their partners. These measures, taken together, provide for a significant strengthening of accountability to local communities. I believe that they will be far more effective than the politicisation of policing through directly elected police commissioners.
	On an issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, highlighted as of concern, we will provide for all higher tier local authorities—that is, county councils and unitary councils—to have at least one seat on police authorities. For some strategic police authorities, that may result in slightly larger authorities than would otherwise be the case. We are discussing with the existing police authorities the appropriate level of representation on the new strategic authorities. We think that that is the right way forward. I absolutely understand why the issue has been raised and why the noble Baroness wanted an assurance on it.
	I turn to Amendment No. 28. Under the provisions of Schedules 2 and 2A to the Police Act 1996, the payment of allowances to, and the reimbursement of the expenses of members of a police authority is left to the authority to determine. We do not propose to change that approach. In keeping with our general approach to introduce greater flexibility into the legislation governing the membership and functions of police authorities, we are repealing the whole of Schedules 2 and 2A to the 1996 Act.
	We therefore need to include in the new Section 4 regulation-making powers to provide for the payment of expenses and allowances to the members of a police authority and to the members of an authority's standards committee. Without such regulation-making powers, police authorities would be precluded from paying any allowances or expenses not only to their own members but also to standards committee members. I know that that is not what Members of the Committee would have wanted. I see the quizzical look from the noble Baroness, Lady Harris. That is why I am confident that she wishes people to receive appropriate payment. That would be an unintended consequence, which I am sure that we can avoid.
	I assure the Committee that when we come to make the regulations, they will provide that it will be for a police authority to determine the allowances and expenses to be paid to its members and those of the authority's committee. I wholly agree that there is no need for the Home Office to be involved in such matters. However, we need the regulation-making power to give effect to the approach that I have set out. I know that conspiracy theories abound, but I assure the noble Baroness that I am looking out for her erstwhile members in terms of the moneys that they are justly entitled to receive.
	It is entirely appropriate that we should use the opportunity provided by the Bill to explore the accountability arrangements for policing. Of course there are other models, but the Government believe that, with some refinement, the police authority structure we have now is broadly the right one. It has been proven and tested. We really want to retain its essence to ensure that we can consolidate that. As I indicated, we will look again at the provisions in the schedule to see whether more detail can be put in the Bill.
	Finally, Amendments Nos. 33 and 38, tabled by my noble friend Lady Henig, require that, when making regulations on the composition of police authorities, the Home Secretary consult the Association of Police Authorities in addition to the police authorities affected. We can see a case for this. I am happy to accept these amendments in principle. I see that I have given delight to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, which always gives me pleasure. Arguably, if we make such a change to subsection (9) of revised Section 4 of the Police Act, we should also include a requirement to consult the Local Government Association—a point made by a number of Members of the Committee, not least the noble Baroness, Lady Harris.
	I hope that I have given sufficient comfort to the Front Bench opposite and to my noble friend to persuade them not to press their amendments. I commend them on their unity of purpose.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: The noble Baroness gave crumb of comfort at the end, but she will understand that a meal of discontent came before it. I was very interested in the way in which she discarded the idea of direct election of people to authorities on the basis that there were elections enough. Has she spoken to her colleague, Mr Jack Straw, to explain that perhaps there should not be elections to this House as well? Perhaps that would be one election too many. One never knows.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I meant to this House as well. But the list could have gone on and on.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: As ever, the noble Baroness has managed to say something that almost makes us all roll over and say, "Well, she is absolutely right on that so she must be right on the rest"—but not quite.
	We have had a long debate on core issues, but there are some simple principles involved here. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for saying that on some issues she will look again at the detail, but I am still very concerned about some of the matters that remain unresolved. There remains the core matter of how much should be in primary and how much in secondary legislation. The noble Baroness has said that she is prepared to listen but that the Government think that the balance is right. I think that it is important that all of us should be able between now and Report to look in detail at whether there should be any shifting of this information into secondary legislation. I still remain deeply concerned about that happening.
	Certainly there was a great deal of agreement around the Committee that too much was being shifted. That was backed up by the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The noble Baroness quoted from the first half of paragraph 20; the second half—the recommendation—makes it clear that the committee's first choice would be for these matters to remain in primary legislation. We have a long way to go before Report if we are to achieve a measure of unanimity.
	The noble Baroness rightly referred to the important way in which police authorities have worked on a consensual basis. I certainly recognise that and I congratulate them on the way in which they have done so. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, was right to point out that there is a genuine dilemma about how you appoint people. Should it be on a geographical basis so that every area feels that it has its person there, or is it a matter of achieving a political balance? The political balance appears to have worked well. There has not been any party political in-fighting and each organisation has worked for the best of its community.
	I think that a great many of the difficulties that we are about to face with the size of police authorities and how they function in the future with the new type of membership will be due to the Government's determination to merge police forces. Police authorities will cover much larger areas and therefore, automatically, there will be smaller areas which feel, "Excuse me, we are being left out"—divisiveness may arise as a result of a geographical feeling of being omitted. So there is a genuine dilemma about how appointments should be made.
	I certainly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, that, overall, one has to look at how the organisation will function effectively. The amendments that she has brought forward today were especially helpful. Amendments Nos. 23 and 31 were particularly helpful in teasing out the detail of what we need to look at between now and Report.
	Of course, the Minister said what I expected with regard to magistrates. I will say what she expects: I have listened to the Magistrates' Association, with which, as a long past magistrate myself, I have great sympathy. I shall not test the opinion of the House today—even though the match has not yet begun and there is still time, I will not do that—because, as ever, when I bring forward amendments that are in response to specific requests from organisations, I refer back to them to seek their advice before I take any further action. But I feel that they have an expertise on which it would be wrong for police authorities to lose out as of right.
	I feel that there is an overwhelming need for these matters to remain in primary legislation but—picking up from Dr Reid yesterday—I am prepared to listen. However, I think that my destination will remain the same. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 23 to 38 not moved.]

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 39:
	Page 77, line 21, leave out paragraphs 9 and 10.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: Amendment No. 39 probes further another aspect of the extension of the Secretary of State's power to supervise police authorities. As with the previous group of amendments, we have grouped with our amendment a series of amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, which are very useful in teasing out the detail of the principles to which I hope to refer.
	As I mentioned a moment ago, I remain extremely concerned about the extent to which the Secretary of State is moving into secondary legislation matters that were previously—and I think properly—governed by statute.
	Amendment No. 39 would remove paragraphs 9 and 10 from the schedule. Paragraph 9 adds to the general functions of a police authority that are set out in Section 6 of the Police Act 1996. The primary duty under existing legislation is to secure an efficient and effective police force for the police authority's area. The change introduced in paragraph 9 makes it clear that it is the job of police authorities to hold the chief officer of police to account in the exercise of his functions and those of persons under his control and direction. This change has been welcomed by the Association of Police Authorities but ACPO is concerned about it.
	What is the Minister's response to the view expressed by ACPO that this new provision, when taken together with other changes that are currently taking place to the way in which the personal performance of the chief officer is assessed, will create a linear relationship between police authorities and chief officers? The Association of Police Authorities, of course, believes that this change could improve local accountability. What arguments have the Government put forward to ACPO to demonstrate that it should bring greater local accountability without harming the chief officer's line of control over his or her force? How can they guarantee that there will be no politicisation of policing functions if this schedule goes through unamended and the membership loses magistrates and, of course, becomes dominated by councillors? The Minister has just said that magistrates will not be there as of right.
	The remainder of paragraphs 9 and 10 broadly states that the Secretary of State shall determine the other police authority functions by secondary legislation. We question why these functions should be set out in secondary legislation rather than in primary legislation. If the matters in paragraph 9 were in primary legislation, the role of police authorities in representing the interests of local communities would be firmly established on the face of the legislation, thus guaranteeing that the constitutional balance between local and central interests is maintained.
	Does the Minister agree with the Association of Police Authorities in its briefing that the general list of functions should run as follows: a duty to ensure that communities are consulted in setting policing priorities; powers to set the strategic direction and objectives of the force within a national framework; a duty to promote diversity and good community relations; a duty on chief officers to provide information to police authorities and a power for police authorities to require chief officers to appear before the police authority; a duty to monitor the performance of the force for its area; and a duty to ensure that the force for the area should co-operate with other forces and other partners where appropriate? That is the list that the Association of Police Authorities briefed us would be appropriate. Should any of the matters on that list be excluded? Should any other matters be added? If there is no change, why not simply put that list into primary legislation? I beg to move.

Lord Haskel: If this amendment is agreed, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 40 to 45 inclusive because of pre-emption.

Baroness Henig: I shall speak to the amendments in my name—Amendments Nos. 40 to 46, 48, 50 and 52. Amendment No. 40 is the key amendment that I wish to speak to and I am encouraged by the fact that my noble friend is listening to the argument. I have accepted all along that flexibility is important and that we do not want to enshrine provisions in primary legislation that might make it difficult to make changes in the future. I understand those arguments, but it is important to ensure that the role of the police authorities in representing the interests of local communities is firmly established in the legislation and that the constitutional balance between local and central interests is maintained.
	Although I welcome the fact that the Bill gives a new function to police authorities of holding the chief constable to account for the performance of the force, I would like to add some specific functions to that in light of the experience of the past few years, because the police authorities have been carrying out a number of functions that underline their role in terms of local accountability. One very important one is making arrangements to consult and seek the views of people in the area. That should be spelt out.
	Setting strategic direction and priorities is again absolutely essential. Like the last speaker, I have listed the sorts of issues that need to be spelt out to give the police authority its clear mandate in terms of local arrangements and its role in terms of local accountability. That is an essential part of the tripartite relationship, which is why I would very much like this to be spelt out in primary legislation. I do want to prolong arguments, because we have already heard plenty about the motives behind some of these amendments.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: I will speak briefly to Amendment No. 40 in this group, to which I have added my name. As the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, said, the amendment places key principles in primary legislation. We spoke about this matter at Second Reading when my concern was to ensure that only the details that appropriately and genuinely needed to be in secondary legislation should be there.

Lord Harris of Haringey: I wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 40 to 46, 48, and 50 to 52, which are in my name. Since Amendment No. 51 is a companion to Amendment No. 49, it may be helpful if I speak to that now even though it is in a later group. Amendments Nos. 53 to 56 and 58 all relate to the responsibilities of police authorities, so it may also be helpful if I speak to those at the same time. Clearly, we have already had the debate about what should be in primary or secondary legislation. Just as fundamental as issues around membership, chairs and vice-chairs is the question of police authority powers and responsibilities, which is the core of many of the amendments in this group.
	Amendment No. 40 clearly set outs in primary legislation the responsibilities of police authorities. Amendments Nos. 46, 48, 50 and 52 try to move away from what seems to be a rather strange process in the Bill whereby the Secretary of State is given rather more power to specify the nature of the police authority plans and strategic plans and how they should be consulted on, which I am not convinced is necessary.
	Amendment No. 51 is a companion to Amendment No. 49 and relates to the powers that are, in essence, lost if best value is wholly or partially disapplied. It places an obligation on the chief officer of police to provide to the police authority relevant information to enable it to discharge its general functions. That is the principal part and consequence of accountability.
	Amendments Nos. 53 to 56 and 58 relate to the position of the senior officer team immediately under the position of chief constable. It reinstates the position in the Police Act 1996, whereby it is the police authority and not the chief constable that should determine which senior officer should act in the place of the chief constable during his or her absence. It would also place on police authorities the responsibility to ensure that both the structure and skills available within the senior officer team are robust and resilient, something that is currently done with police authorities making those appointments. Similarly, there should be a parallel arrangement in the allocation of portfolios between the senior officer team, and the precise number of senior police staff posts should be determined in the same way. That is consistent with current practice and it would be helpful if it were reflected in the Bill rather than being diluted, which would otherwise be the consequence.

Lord Dholakia: I lend my support to Amendment No. 40. I am delighted that there is mention under paragraph (f) of monitoring,
	"the performance of the force in complying with any duty imposed on the force by or under this Act, the Human Rights Act 1998 . . . or any other enactment".
	I would have thought that the Minister would want to take back with her the need to look very seriously at the duty imposed on the police under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. We have been talking about who should make the appointment, how the appointment should be made, whether there should be geographical or political balances and so forth. However, the crucial need is to have an equality audit so that a diverse range of people are not in any way discouraged or disadvantaged, as is mentioned in paragraph (g). All these factors must be taken into account. They must be on the face of the Bill so that authorities and others will know their obligations under this very important legislation.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I now have to respond to a rather larger group of amendments than I originally intended, because the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has brought into the debate, quite understandably, Amendment No. 49 and those that follow on from Amendment No. 53. The amendments tabled by the noble Baroness opposite relate to the functions of police authorities. The noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay and Lady Harris, referred to our approach to these issues. In essence, there is a lot of agreement throughout the Committee as to the general direction in which we wish to travel and how we see police authorities working. In the end, we probably differ only about the means of achieving that end.
	It is worth reminding the Committee that in the White Paper Building Communities, Beating Crime we clearly set out proposals for strengthening the effectiveness of police authorities, including by conferring on them additional responsibilities. Paragraph 9 of Schedule 2 to the Bill confers a new responsibility on police authorities to hold the chief officer,
	"to account for the exercise of his",
	or her functions. That is already an implicit function, but is not stated in legislation. The Bill provides for this function to be made explicit. Paragraph 10 of Schedule 2 will enable the Secretary of State to confer other functions on police authorities by order. These include monitoring the performance of their police force in complying with duties imposed by the Police Act, the Human Rights Act and other legislation; securing arrangements for their force to co-operate with other forces whenever necessary or expedient; and promoting diversity within the force and within the authority itself.
	I am conscious that concerns have been raised that much of the detail of the functions will be in secondary legislation. I know that ACPO in particular has concerns about moving the provisions relating to policy plans to secondary legislation. However, we want to make it clear that chief constables retain responsibility for drafting the local policing plan. The plan would as now be the authority's plan but the authority would need to consult the chief constable before making any major changes. But we are prepared to look at that issue in particular, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, raised it, in time for Report. In respect of the provisions on the composition of police authorities, this approach is consistent with the more general move to make primary legislation more flexible. That is the benefit of using the secondary legislation route.
	Placing police authority functions in secondary legislation does not affect the balance of the tripartite framework, which we greatly respect and whose effectiveness over the past few decades we acknowledge. The primary functions of maintaining an efficient and effective police force and holding the chief officer to account for the way in which he or she discharges his functions will remain on the face of the Police Act 1996.
	As I said before, there is not a great deal between us. My noble friend Lady Henig has accepted in her Amendment No. 43 the principle that additional functions could be conferred on police authorities by secondary legislation. That makes good sense because new situations arise and other issues may well come to light; it is important at all times to retain some flexibility in how the legislation works. Her Amendment No. 40, which seeks to write the proposed new functions on to the face of the 1996 Act, has much the same practical effect as the Government's new Section 6ZA. I offer her an assurance that we will exercise the various new delegated powers so that police authorities will continue to be required to publish policing plans and policing objectives, to ensure that their communities are properly consulted and to exercise the new functions specified in subsection (2) of new Section 6ZA.
	It is worth noting that, in its report on the Bill, the Delegated Powers Committee did not pass comment on the order-making power in paragraph 10, in contrast to the power in paragraph 11. We can take it from the committee's silence that it did not view either the order-making power or the level of parliamentary scrutiny as objectionable.
	Amendment No. 49, which was proposed by my noble friend Lord Harris, seeks to place a new duty on the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to provide the Metropolitan Police Authority with such information as it considers necessary to enable it to discharge its core functions. I do not dispute—who would?—that police authorities need access to information held by their chief constable so that they can properly discharge their functions. In most cases, such information will readily be provided without recourse to formal statutory mechanisms. When a police authority needs to resort to such formal legal mechanisms, Section 22 of the Police Act 1996 already gives it a power to require the chief constable to submit a report on those matters connected with the policing of the force area as the authority may specify.
	We would need to see a compelling case that the existing informal and formal mechanisms are not working as they should before we would be ready to concede that additional powers for police authorities are needed in this area. I would want to test such a case with both the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities. I acknowledge that concerns have been expressed about the impact of the Bill on the balance of the tripartite framework. But a number of the amendments that we have debated today, when taken together, would fundamentally alter the balance of the relationship, particularly between chief constables and police authorities. We should not rush into such changes without very careful and detailed examination of the longer-term implications. I therefore ask my noble friend, Lord Harris, to reflect on his amendment and not to move it.
	Amendments Nos. 53 and 54 relate to the arrangements for the designation of deputy chief constables and assistant chief constables to exercise the functions of chief constable in his or her absence. We consider such arrangements to be a direction and control matter, and therefore properly the primary responsibility of the chief constable. In providing for the chief constable to make such designations, after consultation with the police authority, we are simply reverting to the position that existed under the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994. Deputising for the chief constable is but one of the duties of a deputy chief constable or assistant chief constable. Given that the chief constable is responsible for allocating portfolios to his or her senior management team, it is logical that he or she should also determine which of his or her senior officers should deputise in his or her absence.
	Amendments Nos. 55 and 56 relate to the appointment of chief officers. Police authorities already have the statutory responsibility for the appointment of chief officers. It is already the case that the police authority determines the number of assistant chief constables and the Bill extends this to deputy chief constable posts, subject to the consent of the Home Secretary. In advertising these posts, the police authority will need to consider, in consultation with the chief constable, the expertise required. The current arrangements work well, so again we see no particular need to add to statutory provision in that respect.
	Finally, Amendment No. 58 relates to the appointment of senior police staff. While the appointment of senior police staff, such as the directors of finance, human resources and IT, is the responsibility of the chief constable, and the appointment of chief officers is primarily the responsibility of the police authority, we are aware of successful arrangements whereby authorities and chief constables work together on these appointments. This is good practice, we commend it and see no need to entrench it in a legislative change. All the issues raised in these amendments relate to the balance of responsibilities of police authorities and chief constables. I am sure that my noble friend will agree that we should not seek to alter that balance without the dialogue with ACPO and APA that I talked of earlier. I appreciate that my noble friend speaks with a great deal of authority with regard to those two organisations.
	This has been a very helpful and welcome debate on this range of issues. We are all searching to make the legislation relevant to where we are in the development of the police service. We need to get the balance of the legislation right between having things on the face of the Bill, with its necessary inflexibility and precision, and expressing them in secondary legislation, which enables a degree of flexibility as service develops, conditions change and new demands and pressures arise that require a more flexible approach to issues of management structure and organisation. Having heard many of the arguments, I am grateful for the points of view that have been offered on these issues but hope that the amendments will not be pressed.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: After that veritable tour de force by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, I will be mercifully brief. I see that time presses on for a variety of reasons. There are those who are ready to continue work into the dinner break, whereas the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, with his expertise in political matters—I am sure that he runs Haringey authority exceptionally well—has managed to bring forward future groups of his amendments expertly into this one group. Perish the thought if he found it convenient to watch a particular football match; his colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, is in no such position, because she still has some amendments left for debate after the dinner break, as do we. So there are those upon whom we look with envy.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I cannot resist this. I would love to watch some of the football match, and no doubt I will get the chance to see the opening section. However, having watched some of the tortuous games that our great players have indulged in on occasion in recent tournaments, perhaps missing it is in part a blessed relief.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: Follow that. I have been trying to avoid saying something like "Wayne Rooney" all day, but never mind.
	My major problem with this remains my concern about the Government moving so much into secondary legislation and away from primary legislation. I thought that Amendment No. 40, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, was particularly adept at ensuring that there was another way of clearly setting out what the Government rightly want to set out—that is, the functions of the police authority—but doing so in primary legislation, without having to go down the secondary route. Her amendment has the advantage of enabling other functions to be added later through secondary legislation. Here we have a clear statement of what I believe the functions of a good police authority should be.
	I hear what the Minister says about some possibility of movement on some other issues and the Government's readiness to talk between now and Report. We will be doing a lot of talking, but we are going to need a lot of action, too. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 40 to 46 not moved.]

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: It may be convenient for the Government to break here.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I could be helpful on Amendment No. 47, and we could discharge it reasonably quickly. The noble Baroness is very welcome to move it.

Lord Haskel: It is Christmas.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 47:
	Page 79, line 20, leave out from "section" to "House" in line 21 and insert "may not be made unless a draft of that order has been laid before, and approved by, a resolution of each"

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: We are assisted by Father Christmas—in this case, it is not me but the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.
	The DPRRC's report states that paragraph 11 of Schedule 2 replaces provisions in the 1996 Act with a power for the Secretary of State by regulation, subject to the negative procedure, to require authorities to determine objectives and issue plans and reports concerning the policing of their areas. The Government's justification for this change given in the memorandum is that,
	"it will enable the Secretary of State to have the flexibility to easily alter"—
	the Home Office splitting infinitives! What school did they go to?—
	"the arrangements for planning, etc".
	It will indeed do that, but it will also enable the Secretary of State to impose significantly different requirements on police authorities from those sanctioned by Parliament in the 1996 Act. The recommendation goes as follows:
	"Provision which can increase central government control over police authorities has considerable capacity to be controversial, and we consider that regulations made under the provisions inserted by paragraph 11 should be subject to the affirmative procedure".
	That is what my Amendment No. 47 will do if the Government accept it. I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Baroness has anticipated wonderfully what I was going to say. I can be brief. She says the amendment seeks to give effect to one of the DPRRC's recommendations. We are quite happy to accept that recommendation as we usually do. However, we think the wording of Amendment No. 47 is inconsistent with that used elsewhere in the Police Act 1996. There is an error there. I seek this from the noble Baroness: if she would agree simply to withdraw the amendment, the Government will table, as one would expect, an amendment that is appropriately worded and ensure that it is there in time for Report, accurately reflecting what the DPRRC seeks and what the noble Baroness now seeks too.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: The Minister nearly replied unexpectedly by actually accepting an amendment, but as ever I accept that my drafting is not right. Let us hope, though, that in its draft the Home Office does not have a split infinitive. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 48 to 53 not moved.]

Baroness Harris of Richmond: This is a little confusing. While Amendment No. 53 has been spoken to, we still have other amendments grouped with it.

Lord Haskel: The noble Lord, Lord Harris, said he was speaking to Amendments Nos. 53 to 56.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: And that was accepted at the time? Very well.

[Amendments Nos. 54 to 58 not moved.]

Lord Bassam of Brighton: In view of the hour, I beg to move that the House be now resumed, and, in moving that, I suggest that the Committee recommence not before 8.35 pm.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House resumed.

Contracting Out (Functions Relating to Child Support) Order 2006

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 22 May be approved [28th Report from the Joint Committee and 37th Report from the Merits Committee].

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, this order is enabling legislation designed to help the Child Support Agency achieve some of the key objectives set out in the operational improvement plan, which was published and announced in this House on 9 February 2006. The plan sets out the agency's aims and objectives for the next three years. It is recognition that we need to continue to maintain and improve performance while Sir David Henshaw makes his recommendations and considers and consults on the way to redesign the child support system. The overall aim of the plan is to improve service to clients, increase the amount of money collected, achieve greater compliance from non-resident parents and provide a better platform from which to implement future policy.
	In developing the operational improvement plan the agency identified a significant capacity gap. Contracting out certain services will enable the agency to fill that gap, deliver the planned improvements by March 2009 and stay within the approved resource levels and spending limits. However, contracting out is not just about capacity; it is also about buying in expertise and learning from the private sector. This order will enable the agency to contract out three main areas of work: the management of clerical cases, a significant amount of debt recovery and some tracing of non-resident parents.
	The CSA's computer problems have been well documented and discussed in this House. As a result of these problems, currently around 19,000 cases are dealt with clerically. These cases need a disproportionate amount of resources. Contracting out that work will enable those currently employed in that activity to be redeployed, freeing up to 700 staff for frontline processing. That will contribute significantly to the agency reducing its backlog of new scheme applications. This is a finite area of work, with all clerical cases expected to be placed back on to the computer system by 2009 once the IT fixes have been delivered. Given that short lifespan, this area lends itself readily to contracting out. It is possible for operations to be scaled up and down easily, it is stand-alone and it needs minimal use of the agency's computer systems.
	The contractor will be required to undertake a wide range of activities in delivering the entire clerical case management process, from initial information gathering to making assessments and calculations, and then arranging collection of maintenance. The contractors will therefore need to use most of the powers currently used by the Child Support Agency. As a result, the order has been drafted to cover a wide range of agency functions.
	I now move to debt recovery. Nearly one in three non-resident parents who have been assessed and are due to make a payment fail to pay for their children. Debt accrued since 1993, as a result of non-resident parents' failure to pay, exceeds £3.3 billion. This is why the operational improvement plan has increased enforcement at its heart. We agreed funding of £30 million to allow the agency to employ external debt collection agencies to recover in excess of £100 million of outstanding debt. The contractors will enhance the agency's debt reduction capacity by undertaking a wide range of activities to recover individual debts. They will be encouraged to be innovative, within existing legislation, to recover what is due or establish a satisfactory repayment arrangement promptly.
	In England and Wales contractors will enforce the payment of debt through the magistrates' court or the county court as appropriate. This will include obtaining county court judgments, liability orders, third-party debt orders and charging orders. Contractors operating in Scotland will fulfil the same role using the appropriate Scottish legislation. It is important to stress that there will be no reduction in the child support maintenance received by individual parents as a result of using contractors. The cost of employing the contractors will be borne by the agency.
	We also intend to allow private sector contractors to use their tracing expertise to find non-resident parents who are avoiding the agency. Just under 70,000 cases have not yet been assessed on the old scheme, largely because non-resident parents cannot be traced by the agency. We know that in a number of cases, non-resident parents deliberately avoid dealing with the agency, for example by refusing to answer calls and letters, frequently moving or deliberately providing incorrect information. Such behaviour prevents the establishment of regular child support maintenance payments. So, where the agency has failed to find the non-resident parent, the contractor will seek to locate him or her and conduct interviews to capture information to enable maintenance assessments, calculations and/or enforcement action to be undertaken.
	It was necessary to draft this order widely; together the three areas we wish to contract out cover most of the functions carried out by the agency. But we have excluded some statutory functions from the order. Section 71 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 precludes certain functions from being contracted out. These include, for example, rights of entry and seizure, and seeking committal to prison or disqualification from driving. Where necessary, contractors will return cases for the agency to progress.
	Contractors will be doing a very sensitive job so it is right that we deal only with the most reputable. The agency will use an existing departmental procurement framework to appoint contractors for debt collection and trace activity. This framework was established following a competitive tendering process. A different procurement route is being taken for clerical case management. Contractors will be selected following a competitive tendering exercise and must demonstrate a proven track record in this area of work and the business and financial capacity to deliver. Although we have been clear on the cost of the debt contract, negotiations over clerical cases are at such a stage that I cannot give figures on these costs. However, I can assure noble Lords that we would not let any contract that would cost more than retaining the work in-house.
	All successful contractors will be subject to strict codes of practice and will be required to adhere to all relevant legislation such as child support, human rights and data protection legislation.
	In conclusion, the order will support the implementation of the Child Support Agency's operational improvement plan, which in turn will deliver a better deal for the children of separated parents. I am satisfied that the order is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and I commend it to the House.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 22 May be approved [28th Report from the Joint Committee and 37th Report from the Merits Committee].—(Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.)

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the House and, more importantly, thousands of children and their parents with care, will be grateful that after nine years in power, the Government are at last doing something constructive about the Child Support Agency.
	We should remember that the CSA was set up in 1993 with all-party support, mainly because the courts, where child maintenance payments were decided, were slow, uncertain and led to low and inconsistent settlements. Under the CSA's parent Act, the Child Support Act 1991, the agency took on responsibility for calculating child maintenance, using a standard formula to ensure consistency. Our stance on this has not changed and we remain convinced that the formula approach is the right one.
	In addition, however, the agency's role was, and still is, to locate absent parents, identify their income, and secure the payment of maintenance. Although the agency is unpopular with clients—a fact admitted by the Minister in the past, and hardly surprising where absent parents who want to escape their responsibility to their children are concerned—the fact remains that it is the responsibility of both parents to pay for the maintenance of their children as far as they can. The taxpayer should become involved only where parents do not have the financial means to support them. That is fine in theory. In practice it is not the parents who, once found, accept their responsibilities and then pay the formula-assessed sums to the parent with care who concern us, it is those absent parents who just will not pay, who move around making it difficult to locate them or who may be in work one month and out of it the next—or, indeed, all three.
	It is clear, too, that thousands of parents split up and move apart, often by many miles, or even out of the country, among them two cases about which I have recently written to the Minster. It is hardly surprising, then, that in September last year 333,000 agency cases had not been cleared, and some parents with care inevitably face poverty as a result. It is probably not surprising, either, that irrecoverable debt now tops £1 billion. What I find surprising is that the agency is still chasing 100,000 fathers who will not pay maintenance. In passing, is it true that for every £1 spent on bureaucracy, less than £2 goes to the parent with care? Whether or not that is so, it is clear that the agency is snowed under and cannot cope. Indeed, it has been clear for many years. What I find impossible to understand is how a Minister who has been in post for barely a year can produce a way, partial though it is, out of the problem when his predecessor failed to do anything very constructive for eight previous years.
	It is true that the formula was simplified, and that is a plus. However, the CSA has had to run the old formula and the new one side by side, resulting in yet more chaos. Not only is £1 billion worth of debt irrecoverable, another £2 billion remains uncollected, as reported at col. 1554W of Commons Hansard of 19 January this year. The CSA statistical summary of January 2006 shows that only 61 per cent of maintenance due under the new scheme had been paid as of December 2005, compared with 72 per cent under the old scheme, so no improvement there. The Minister was good enough to refer to my next point. In 2004–05 the agency received 63,678 complaints compared to 49,215 in the previous year—an increase of almost 30 per cent. I observe that Mr Stephen Geraghty, in a departmental press release, regarded that as "disappointing". It is certainly that and there is no improvement there either.
	Now I come to the Minister's solution, which I encapsulate as, "If the agency can't do it, give the worst problems to a body that ought to be able to". In response to the statement on the CSA in February this year, I suggested that contracting out some of the agency's functions might be an answer, and I am glad to see that the Minister has pondered on that suggestion and produced the order we are now debating. At least some clerical case management, debt collection and additional trace activity are to be pursued by the private sector, and I understand from the Explanatory Notes—and, indeed, from what the Minister has just said—that pre-contract negotiations are already in being. However, I hear from the Credit Services Association that these are with the department, not the agency. Why not?
	I need to be much more convinced that case management should ever be contracted out, not least because of your Lordships' Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee's comments on this order. Much as I approve of the principle of contracting out, I can see the force of its arguments, especially on the need for a single point of contact for parents. The latter must be able to speak to someone who has all the details of their case in front of them. Even with contracting out, parents will want to contact the CSA rather than the contractor. It is not satisfactory for them to be referred to somebody else. Even better would be a named official whom parents could ask for every time they had a problem. Contracting out in this area will work only if we could have confidence in the agency's computer. From what the Minister has just said, he obviously cannot give us such confidence at the moment.
	Computers come with the ability to share information easily. I note that the committee prised out an expanded paragraph 7 of the Explanatory Memorandum on this point, and I am grateful to the department for providing it. The bullet points made in it show that prosecutions can, and I hope will, be made if data supplied by the agency are improperly used, not least because of the contractual obligations that will be imposed on the relevant firms.
	The charity One Parent Families has made the point that in some cases contracted-out functions may not prove satisfactory, as has happened in the past with housing benefit. In that case, some local authorities had to spend large sums of local taxpayers' money to break contracts and bring housing benefit back in-house. That would be avoided if break points were inserted into the final contracts. I would expect six months to be too short even after, say, an initial 18-month period. However, is the Minister giving break points serious consideration? Even if the contracts are successful, they will need to be handed back to the agency at some stage. If they work, and I hope they do, does the noble Lord agree that they should be seen as a temporary solution and not go on ad infinitum?
	We have not heard the last of changes to the CSA's operations. The mechanics of assessing the absent parent's income and then extracting it will have to change, and my party stands ready to help when the time is right. We await Sir David Henshaw's report with interest and we hope it is imminent, though with the myriad other things that he is doing at the moment, not least in the north-west, perhaps we cannot be so sure about that. To sum up, this is a bold step for even new and somewhat tarnished Labour to attempt but, with the caveats that I have mentioned, I wish the Minister well in implementing it.

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope: My Lords, I would also like to take part in this important debate and pick up on the point made in the peroration of the spokesman for the Official Opposition. This is an important, signal step, although this is perhaps not a very auspicious evening or time of night to be discussing it. It is important that the House assures itself of some of the background to the proposals in the order. I agree that it would be useful if the order could be put in the context of Sir David Henshaw's report. I hope that the expectation that we would at least get some glimmer of information on his direction of travel before the Summer Recess is still possible and that the Minister may be able to make some statement about that before we rise.
	The operational improvement plan is obviously a welcome attempt to improve operational efficiency during the redesign, but the two cannot be entirely divorced. That would not be sensible, and I am not suggesting that it is. The order must be seen in that context, because there are those who might be ideologically opposed to contracting out under any circumstances, and some special features of the order need special consideration in that context. I have no principled objections, any more than my colleague the noble Lord on the Conservative Front Bench does, to contracting out some of these services. But they are temporary, and some may say that this is the thin end of the wedge. We do not want to prejudice anything that Sir David Henshaw has to say, but some of the press reports that we have seen in the not too distant past have suggested that one of the options that he is looking at is the wholesale contractualisation or privatisation of the agency. That would cause me some more concern because we are dealing with very sensitive data on fractured families from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. Handing those over to the private sector without very careful consideration would be a mistake.
	If the Minister can put the order in the context of the Henshaw report, he might also, if he gets an opportunity in his winding-up speech, say more about the background that the department is facing, because there are obviously very strict financial envelopes to which this order is responding. The situation post-2008 is a 5 per cent cut in the departmental expenditure limits. We also have the upcoming 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review. There are the Gershon requirements, which I guess are driving some of the constraints under which the department must operate. It is right and proper that we should be very careful about spending public money.
	Some of the ways in which the changes that the order brings might impact on the staff cause concern, if only because they are bound to affect staff morale. The uncertainty that is an inevitable part of the changes is, I am sure, being addressed by Mr Stephen Geraghty in his new guise as the chief executive, as best he may. He made some comments in a recent appearance before the Select Committee in the other place that reassured me about that. I hope that the Minister will give us some assurances about the 700 staff. We cannot just move people around like pieces on a chess board; these are professional people who work very hard and do a very dedicated job, certainly in my experience, trying to make a system that is very difficult and clunky work. Like the rest of us, they have the best interests of the clients at heart. Some of the financial background to some of the cuts and what the future holds in that direction would be very useful by way of context. I hope that this is a three-year, short-term project. I hope that it will be concluded, and then we can move back into a fully functional next steps agency in the CSA as we have experienced it in the past.
	I am a bit concerned—although I may be misunderstanding this and I seek reassurance—that some of the Secretary of State's functions are going with some of the contracts. I am not an expert on privatisation, and maybe a note would be the best way of dealing with this, but I am a little worried. I can understand taking debt collection and tracing out of the CSA, because I can see that they are discrete areas of activity. As a provincial solicitor in my previous incarnation, I can see that you could construct a contract that would be foreseeable and understandable in those areas, but some parts of the individual clerical case management are extremely complicated, and I do not think they can be contracted out without contracting out some of the Secretary of State's powers in parallel with it. Qualitatively, that could be different, and we need to be very careful about trading some of that authority from the Secretary of State, under the statutes passed by this House, to contractors in a contract. I want some reassurance that the monitoring team that will look at compliance is very clear about that aspect of the contractualisation. I may have misunderstood it, but I would like some reassurance on that. If it is not possible, a note that could be shared would be useful.
	My other concern about some of the debt collection processes is that, as I read the papers that came with the order, the pilot on which the debt collection scheme was based involved only two commercial firms. I also have had some correspondence with the Credit Services Association and the like. I would be a bit nervous about scaling up a nationwide system across two different criminal jurisdictions, or common law jurisdictions in terms of debt collection in Scotland and debt collection in England and Wales, based on the experience of two pilots. I hope that one of them was in Scotland, for example. That is not a particularly extensive base on which to take things forward. I can see that there is a case, and I agree that there is no doubt that some of this work can be done better. Debt enforcement has suffered as a direct result of the fact that so much effort was put into the computation that there was no space left to follow up the enforcement.
	In that regard, the previous Select Committee in the House of Commons, which I had the privilege to chair, had one or two suggestions for the Government that are still worthy of consideration. For example, I understand what is required by primary legislation, but requiring non-resident parents to notify the CSA of a change of address is not an infringement of civil liberties too far. It would give the agency some realistic prospect of finding people without having to get specialists on contracts to chase them. That seems, as the Americans say, a no-brainer. All you need to do is make sure that people have a statutory duty when they change their domicile to advise the agency accordingly. Then all that is needed is a simple knock on the door, telephone call or letter to the new address, rather than getting the gumshoe element in from the private sector to find out where people are. That seems straightforward, so I hope that Sir David Henshaw is looking at it as we speak.
	I think that clerical management will be conducted through some of the agency's own IT hardware. I am not sure whether I have that right, but it is as I read the papers. I do not understand how that works unless we hand over some of the agency's real estate to incoming contractors for the purpose. If they are getting access to the department's computers and not bringing in their own hardware and systems, I cannot envisage how that will work in a management process. I can understand a contract being negotiated and compliance being monitored, but not how that will physically happen if the computers used by agency staff are made available to the people from the private sector who are bringing their new expertise to bear.
	I have a couple of final quick questions on the cost-benefit analysis and the business case, which has not really been established. All we know is that £30 million has been put up for that. It is a significant sum—I hope that it will make a difference over the three years—but reference was made to the consultants who came in. They must have produced some background information on which Ministers took the decision to make the order. Is it possible to see what the consultants said about that? It might be commercially confidential—I understand that you have to be careful about such things—but I would feel more secure in passing the orders, which I am sure that the House will, if I had access to what those experts in these matters said to the department.
	I also would not mind having sight of the contracts in draft before they are let by the end of July. It is not unreasonable for Members of this House to get an idea of them, whether they are placed in the Library or accessed through departments. I know that they are technical documents, because in a previous incarnation in the other House I was given access to the EDS contract that covers the whole IT process. It makes stern reading because its commercial elements must be blacked out. I understand all that, but will the Minister consider giving Members of this House access to the contracts as they stand in draft and the consultants' reports as they were provided to Ministers?
	Incidentally, how much did the consultants cost? That would be an interesting question, too. The department has been under a little pressure in the past, and it is a perfectly reasonable question. I bet that they were not cheap; maybe it is money well spent, but the House would be better informed if we could access such information.
	I conclude with the point made earlier about the experience of outsourcing housing benefit recently. Some local authorities had some singularly bad experiences of trying to get in technical help to do backlog work on housing benefit. In some of the London boroughs, in particular, it went extremely badly wrong and they ended up having to buy out the contracts. One assurance that I would really like this evening is that, whatever else the draft contracts say and before they are signed, if everything that can go wrong does go wrong it will not cost the public purse a barrel-load of money to buy them back—that we have learnt that lesson and that, when contractors make a mess of things and have to be bought out, account will be taken and provision will be made for that in the detail of the contracts.
	I am willing on a three-year basis to wish this experiment well, subject to the promise that, I hope, we will get from the Minister that it will be carefully monitored. It is a short-term operational plan to deal with what I think we all agree is urgent work. It is of secondary importance to launching the David Henshaw work so that we can fix the thing in the long term. Subject to those qualifications I wish the Minister well, but I hope that he will be able to give the House some of the assurances sought this evening.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Skelmersdale and Lord Kirkwood, for their general support for what is proposed, which I welcome. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, asked how I could come to the House after 13 months in the job and offer a solution to the long-standing problems of the agency, which have defied the best endeavours of not only my Government but his Government. All I can say is that we have reached a significant stage in the life of child support in this country. The Government have acknowledged that the agency and the system as they stand are not fit for purpose. Sir David Henshaw has been commissioned not to review but to propose a redesign of the whole system. The intention is that Sir David will report to the Secretary of State before the Summer Recess. I cannot go any further than that, I am afraid. In due course, the Secretary of State will come to the other place to make a Statement and Sir David Henshaw's report will be published, but I cannot give a date; clearly, his redesign proposals will need to be carefully considered.
	However, I give the assurance that we do not want to hang about on this. We are anxious to see progress as quickly as possible. The operational improvement plan is a token of that wish. We are producing extra resources for the agency to spend; I have already referred to the £30 million that will be spent on the debt-collection companies, which is part of our work in endeavouring to ensure that the agency's performance is enhanced in the three years, alongside whatever actions we take towards the redesign. I certainly accept the implication of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that the proposals in the order, the overall operational improvement plan and Sir David's redesign have to be seen as a cohesive process.
	I agreed very much with the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, about parental responsibility and the role of the state. I also agreed when he said that the broad formula—he rightly said that it was simplified at the beginning of the decade—seemed to have stood the test of time. It is everything else that has caused problems, as he knows.
	In the past year under Mr Stephen Geraghty, the new chief executive, the performance of the agency has been stabilised. The operational improvement plan is about improving that overall performance, and various targets have been set over the next two to three years. For instance, by March 2008 we expect that the time taken to clear an application in around 80 per cent of cases should be no more than 18 weeks, and by March 2009 no more than 12 weeks, a significant improvement on current performance. There are other performance measures as well.
	Mr Geraghty has strengthened his senior management team. To pick up the point about staff morale, I should say that I agree of course with the noble Lord's comments about motivation and how staff have worked under considerable pressure and criticism. There is much to be admired in the agency's workforce, and Mr Geraghty has spent some considerable time in communication exercises with the staff, including a series of meetings throughout the agency after the announcement of the operational improvement plan. I have spent some time meeting staff; clearly, it will be critical over the next two to three years to communicate with them and ensure that they feel their job is valued.
	We are hopeful that the use of private contractors in relation to debt collection, tracing and the clerical cases will enable certain areas of dedicated service to be undertaken, while allowing the agency to focus on clearing the backlog and sorting out some of the system problems that it has had to cope with over many years. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, part of the resource is being spent on the training and development of staff and ensuring that the new teams that are developed work effectively. A lot of the resource is being spent on up-skilling the staff working within the agency.
	The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, asked why we were working through the DWP contractual arrangement, rather than the CSA. My answer, I suppose, is: why not? The DWP has experience in this area. It is not unusual for some of the CSA's activities to be undertaken through more general DWP contracts—indeed, in relation to IT systems. On the need of the department as a whole to improve its efficiency, there may be many cases where a departmental approach may help the agency and other parts of the organisation.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, before the Minister leaves that point, can he make it clear that the contracts will be between the department and the contractors rather than the CSA and the contractors? If it is to be the latter, I, and any reasonable individual, would have thought that such contracts should at least pass through the hands of the management of the CSA.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the CSA is the department. Let me make it clear—

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, with great respect, it is not. It is an agency of the department—which is very different.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, with respect, it is part of the department, as are the other executive agencies. Whoever holds the contract, whether that is the department or the executive agency, the important thing is how well it is negotiated and how well it is monitored. I was going to say to the noble Lord that we believe that we will be able to put in place very satisfactory contractual arrangements that will meet some of the issues that noble Lords have raised.
	Regarding contact between clients of the agency and the CSA and the issue of debt, I can reassure the noble Lord that the CSA will have a dedicated team of staff in-house which will be able to deal with client issues that arise, although, clearly, the companies who will be used to deal with debt will be very much involved in face-to-face contact with the non-resident parent. But there will be a team in the agency to which people can refer as well.
	The IT position has been well debated. The reassignment of the contract with EDS is on a much sounder footing. It is co-operating wholeheartedly in improving the system and a number of "fixes", as they are called, are taking place over two years and seem to be going well. It is steady progress and I doubt whether the system, even at the end of the two-year period, will ever achieve what was hoped to be achieved in those halcyon days when people expected so much. But it is nearer to becoming the kind of system that can be used to provide effective performance.
	On contractual obligations—the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, referred to data protection—contractors will be under the same legal considerations and the same policy operations as the agency is under. That will also be monitored. Yes, I very much agree with the noble Lord that there will be brake points and, where appropriate—although we hope that it never happens—the possibility of termination will also be written into those contracts. I very much take the point that was raised about previous local authority experience and we will want to ensure that the contracts are as tight as possible.
	As far as monitoring is concerned, there will be monthly reports. Regarding the contract in relation to debt, the companies who are successful will have to work in accordance with the code of the Credit Services Association. They will have to adhere to current legislation. My department will appoint audit and secure teams who will have access to the sites of those companies and will be able to audit their process; and there will be staff within the agency who will be part of that monitoring process. I hope that noble Lords will take it from me that there would be little point going down this route unless we were confident that we could come to satisfactory arrangements for effective monitoring, because, at the end of the day, we want to ensure that this proves to be a beneficial change of direction in policy to enable the agency to improve its performance. There is no advantage whatever to the Government in not having good contracts that are tightly monitored, with the ability to intervene if things go wrong.
	The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked me about the department's current efficiency programme and the implications of the agreement that has already been announced about the department's budget for the next spending review. They can best be described as challenging. There is no question but that the department is spending a lot of time and energy both in meeting the current efficiency target, which is to be measured by resource and headcount, and in terms of the future. In order to meet those challenges, the department will have to operate more smartly. I believe that we can do that, and we are setting the foundations for so doing.
	Furthermore, our approach to the operational improvement plan shows that we are able to be flexible. We are bringing in more staff to work in the agency over the next two to three years, but at the end of that period we expect the number to come down to the original headcount figure that we had in mind. I think that that is how departments should work in the future. They should be able to switch resources, identify the pressure points and move people in. At the same time, we have to look at the scale of our operations and at how we can simplify the benefits system. Clearly, the more we do that, the more straightforward the processes will become and the easier they will be to administer, but it is a big challenge.
	The noble Lord asked whether, by going down the route of using private sector companies for dedicated tasks, it could be implied that that might happen either to the agency or to the department as a whole. I can say only that we have to look at our operations. Clearly, we will learn from the lessons of the CSA and from this approach. We have to do everything we can to ensure that the staff who are working with us at the moment work as efficiently and effectively as possible, but we also have to look at other ways in which some services might be run in the future. I am confident that we can come up with a package of measures that will enable the department to meet these very challenging targets and also ensure that we provide efficient and effective services.
	The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, was concerned that the Secretary of State's responsibilities were being transferred to the contractors in clerical cases. I hope that he is reassured by the fact that I have spelt out the monitoring processes that will be used. The clerical cases are a block of cases which have arisen because of the computer problems, and I believe that they can be seen as a stand-alone issue. On that basis, we think that there is a particular advantage in using private sector contractors, and there will be safeguards. The great advantage to us is that that will release 700 agency staff who can be used for frontline responsibilities, and the main aim of that is to deal with the backlog. I understand the concerns expressed by the noble Lord but I think that there are enough safeguards in the system, through the monitoring processes that we will put in place, to reassure him that this is a reasonable course of action.
	I understand that the pilots were not location-based.

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope: My Lords, there were none in Scotland.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I am not going to comment on that but I will write to the noble Lord with more details. I understand that they were a selection of cases from all over the country, and I still define "the country" as Scotland, Wales and England. As the noble Lord knows, Ireland is a special case with a special Child Support Agency, but I will send him more details. What we learnt from the pilots gives us confidence in what we are now going to do.
	When I have raised the change of address issue with officials and the agency, the agency has not been convinced of the benefits. I will raise it again with the agency and will ask it to look at it in conjunction with the overall Henshaw review. We can clearly make a number of changes alongside the Henshaw review to make the whole process easier to administer, and we will be considering those. In any case, some negative orders will be coming through shortly and they could be seen in that context. As I said, I will refer this matter back so that the agency can consider it further.
	I cannot offer to let the noble Lord see the draft contracts or the consultant's report, as I am reliably informed that they are commercially sensitive. However, as we progress with this work, I will find opportunities to report back to the House. I am confident and hopeful that we will be able to report positive outcomes from this work. If it is effective, that will significantly enhance the work of the agency.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.35 pm.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	[The Sitting was suspended from 8.24 to 8.35 pm.]

Police and Justice Bill

House again in Committee on Schedule 2.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: moved Amendment No. 59:
	Page 81, line 34, at end insert—
	" For section 16 there is substituted—
	"APPOINTMENT OF CHIEF EXECUTIVE
	(1) A police authority established under section 3 of this Act shall appoint a person to be the chief executive of the authority.
	(2) The Metropolitan Police Authority shall appoint a person to be the chief executive of the Metropolitan Police Authority.""

Baroness Harris of Richmond: The amendment, which refers to the appointment of a chief executive, would change the description of the chief police authority officer from clerk to chief executive, which is seen to be rather less antiquated and more reflective of a modern service. "Clerk" is such an old-fashioned term and does not adequately describe the job. It reeks of quills and dusty ledgers, and is far removed from the highly skilled, legalistic and professional role now performed by all current clerks of police authorities.
	Names mean different things to different people. Chief executive is a much more understandable and accurate name, donating a modern, up-to-date service. I hope that the Minister will agree to this small but important amendment, and put his faith in a deeply committed, hard working able body of men and women. I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: When I became leader of the former Brighton borough council, we had a town clerk and a town clerk's department. The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, has described the rather fusty atmosphere that inhabited that important office, and one which served the authority well. Having heard what she has had to say, I entirely agree with the spirit of the amendment. There have been reports on the way in which we should deal with the renewal of police authorities, and I tend to agree with what she is seeking to achieve.
	Agreeing as I do with the sentiment of the amendment, there will have to be some further thought given to how it is put in place. There will have to be a number of consequential amendments made to the Police Act 1996 and elsewhere in legislation to update references to the "Clerk". The clerk has not finally found his or her place in the redundant chapters of police authority history just yet, but I give the assurance that the noble Baroness seeks. If she will withdraw her amendment, we shall introduce a comprehensive de-clerking amendment that will not just work but will update the removal of the other references, too. Perhaps the noble Baroness will enable us to do that by withdrawing her amendment this evening.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: I am thrilled that the Government have finally accepted one of my amendments. It is a joyous evening. In thanking the Minister for his generous offer, I ask when he proposes to bring the consequential amendments forward, which would be extremely helpful to know.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I look at the note in front of me, which says "at Report stage".

Baroness Harris of Richmond: I am absolutely delighted to thank the Minister for his generous offer. I am sure it will make all the clerks to the police authorities very happy. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 60:
	Page 82, line 10, at end insert—
	:TITLE3:"Cost benefit analysis of alterations
	In section 32 (power to alter police areas by order), after subsection (3) there is inserted—
	"(3A) Before exercising his power under this section the Secretary of State shall commission from an independent body a cost benefit analysis, which shall include the financial costs and benefits of the proposed alterations.
	(3B) The Secretary of State shall publish the cost benefit analysis commissioned under subsection (3A).
	(3C) The Secretary of State shall not exercise his power under this section unless the cost benefit analysis conducted under subsection (3A) concludes that the benefits of the proposed alteration significantly outweigh the costs.
	(3D) In this section "independent body" means a body which is wholly separate from central Government, police forces or police authorities.""

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: Perhaps we are on a roll here, you never know. There are some animals flying by.
	In moving Amendment No. 60, with the leave of the Committee I will speak to Amendment No. 61. It is for the convenience of the Committee that I speak to the two together; I have given advance notice both to the Chairman of Committees and the Minister. Because of matters occurring elsewhere in Europe, I decided that it would not, perhaps, be the most popular thing in the world to call Divisions on these vital matters at this time; particularly because, as the Clerk was so kind to inform us, we are now one-nil up.
	Things nearly as important now come into play. Of course, even though I shall now move and speak to these amendments without testing the opinion of the Committee on this occasion, they remain core to my concerns about policing matters. They develop further the arguments underpinning our earlier debate on Amendment No. 14, on police mergers.
	It is essential that before the Home Secretary forces the merger of police forces, he should ensure that the changes are certain to be both cost-effective and accepted by the communities affected. Amendment No. 60 would require the Home Secretary first to obtain a cost benefit analysis from an independent body. Amendment No. 61 would require the Home Secretary to cause a referendum to be held in every area affected by a potential merger. The Government have said that the systems already set out in the Police Act 1996 put sufficient protection in place; indeed, the Minister herself repeated that when we debated Amendment No. 14.
	The Act provides that when a Home Secretary announces a merger, there is a period of four months when objections may be submitted. The problem is that experience has shown the systems not to be robust enough under this Government's plans for mergers since last autumn. They were put in place by my right honourable friend Michael Howard, but they have certainly not been used in the way that he intended, and cannot, it currently appears, withstand the onslaught of a Government determined to proceed with mergers. Amendment No. 60 therefore provides a sensible procedure for conducting an independent cost benefit analysis. It is surely right that there should be an independent, transparent process. It is as important that this should happen when mergers are agreed as when they are not. Agreement may be reached between the police authority and the Home Secretary, but whether the results of the merger would be cost-effective in the short or long term might still be questioned. The public should have the confidence that these matters have been properly considered.
	The Government's assessment of the costs of the currently proposed mergers is not recognised by police authorities and police forces as being anywhere near the real figure. For example, the Association of Police Authorities has estimated that the cost of mergers could be around £500 million across England and Wales. The Government belatedly announced that they were to meet the net costs of amalgamations in a budgetary letter to the chief constables at the end of March. It is clear, however, that those funds are being raided from the existing police capital budget. Resources that should have been spent on improvements in policing will now be used to pay for management consultants, merged IT systems and new headquarters. The problem is that the Home Office has not yet even made clear what it means by "net costs". Can the Minister put what is meant by that term on the record tonight?
	In any event, it is simply insufficient to offer to fund whatever the Government mean by "net costs". In reality, the costs will have to be funded by recycling other portions of the Home Office grant. With the Home Office budget effectively frozen by the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2008 onwards, the outlook for investment in level 2 services is bleak. Amalgamation will put pressure on other parts of police expenditure. Local policing is bound to suffer. In 2004, a leaked joint Home Office/strategy unit report warned:
	"Evidence from other sectors suggests that merger can be a costly, protracted exercise which does not always deliver expected benefits and inevitably causes distraction for management and staff . . . Any case for merger would need to show that the likely benefits outweigh these risks".
	My amendment simply puts that proposition into the Bill: the costs of merger should be outweighed by the benefits.
	On 8 May, a letter from a group of cross-party chairmen of police authorities representing Cheshire, Cleveland, Northamptonshire, North Wales and West Mercia was published in a number of newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph, the Independent, the Guardian, and the Financial Times. It added to that warning as follows:
	"The current proposals are being rushed through amid growing concern that they will lead to a damaging reduction in performance, a collapse in neighbourhood policing, and a significant loss of accountability. Serious questions remain about the costs and financing of mergers, the impact on council tax, the timescales for transition and the governance arrangements. Opinion polls show overwhelming public opposition, only two police authorities have volunteered to proceed with mergers . . . and some have initiated legal proceedings to halt the process".
	Indeed, we have seen that happen recently. Serious questions about costs still remain. They may only be resolved by taking the course in Amendment No. 60—an independent cost benefit analysis.
	Amendment No. 61 requires a referendum to take place before any merger may proceed. If the Government are serious when they say that they want local people to feel that they have a direct interest in local policing, this would surely be the right way to go about securing that interest and the validation of changes that are of a constitutionally significant nature. I appreciate that the Minister said earlier today that she thinks we have enough elections and do not need any more, but there are occasions when the public have a right to be consulted in an effective way. We can talk about what an effective method might be, but I suggest a referendum as the tool.
	It is clear from informal methods that have been used to test public opinion that the Government's plans for mergers are not popular in many—possibly most—areas. For example, on 12 June, East Sussex County Council announced that it had held an internet poll using the question:
	"The Government has proposed merging the Sussex and Surrey police forces. Do you support a merger?".
	That is as simple and non-prejudicial a question as one could put. The result was that 74 per cent of respondents voted no, 14 per cent voted yes and 11 per cent did not know. It attracted more than 1,100 votes, which makes it reasonably comparable with MORI and other polls.
	One is left with the concern that the Government are perhaps afraid that if they accept my amendment they would have to accept that the public do not want their merger plans. I beg to move.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: One of the most depressing things about discussing the merger proposals is the complete lack of rigorous analysis of how they are going to be funded. All over the country, men and women who ought to be dedicating their time to fighting crime are having to spend months flicking paper around, trying to find ways to get out of mergers or comply with the Government's timetable. Will the Minister say whether she believes that the cost of mergers will be outweighed by the benefits? Is she able to give final figures for the cost? Not to be able to do that at this stage of the Bill is dangerous. Surely, the ratepayers of this country are entitled to know what they are letting themselves in for.
	We must remember that not one extra police officer will be gained in all of this. That is a fine state of affairs. Billions of pounds will be pushed into unnecessary bureaucratic changes to structures when more officers, better tasked and trained, would do the job the Government want them to do. It is indeed depressing, and I am in favour of this amendment.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: First, I commend all those who are still with us in the debate, notwithstanding the provocation to be elsewhere, for entering into it with such vigour.
	Amendment No. 60, as the noble Baroness says, would, if her construct were approved, give a veto on decisions about whether to alter police areas to an unidentified and unaccountable independent body. I find that surprising, bearing in mind the other areas in which she has mentioned accountability. As I said about Amendment No. 14, the role of the elected Government of the day is to take strategic decisions about the policing of this country. That is certainly not a role that should be contracted out.
	Furthermore, the amendment ignores the fact that the current process of restructuring was initiated by the report from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary which, I would argue, is wholly separate from central Government, police forces or police authorities—to use the terms of the amendment. Throughout its history, it has demonstrated its independence, acuity and knowledge of police services and delivery and has been of huge assistance and benefit to each Administration as it has struggled with the arduous task of producing the best quality policing possible in the time available.
	Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary report, Closing the Gap, is clear, independent evidence of the case for change. As for the cost of change, we make announcements. We have been publishing the case for each individual amalgamation, setting out the costs and benefits of merger. Those cases are informed by the independent, professional advice of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. Our analysis of the business case is put forward by police forces and police authorities.
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, has invited me to comment on it, I agree that the benefits of merger must outweigh the costs. In assessing such matters, it is right that the Home Secretary should seek independent advice from HMIC, but I return to the point that, ultimately, it is for Ministers to decide these matters—not to, effectively, pass the buck to a third party.
	Debate about who should or should not have the responsibility has been going on for more than 40 years. Noble Lords will remember that debates about whether we should restructure and who should have responsibility for that were first exposed during the previous royal commission on the police, which reported in 1962—44 years ago. Contrary to popular belief, the amalgamations of the late 1960s were not a direct product of that royal commission. The fact is that that royal commission recommended the setting up of an expert working party which would report confidentially to the Home Secretary, who would then publish the proposals. It stated at paragraph 284:
	"It is not our business to assess in detail the strength of the case for reorganising particular police forces in particular areas on the basis of larger units, but we are satisfied that there is here a problem which Her Majesty's Secretaries of State should examine as part of their duty to promote the higher standards of efficiency in the police service".
	So even the last royal commission agreed that it was for the Home Secretary of the day to decide these matters. There has been nothing to cause us to believe that that assessment was wrong. I return to the point I made previously: that Sections 32 and 34 of the Police Act 1996 already set out a well established process that contains a number of checks and balances. When the Home Secretary initiates a merger, he must give his reasons why he considers that it would be in the interests of the efficiency and effectiveness of policing. He must give notice of his proposals to the affected police and local authorities and must give them at least four months to submit objections. Thereafter, the Home Secretary must consider any objections and respond to them. Only then may he lay a draft order before Parliament, where it must be debated and thereafter approved. That is a comprehensive set of pre-conditions, and we really do not see any case for adding more.
	The use of a referendum, which forms the body of Amendment No. 61 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, is really a third scheme to change the arrangements for giving effect to the police-force amalgamations. There is a place for referendums, but in our parliamentary system they are reserved for major issues of constitutional significance such as devolution and our future relationship with the European Union. Police restructuring is not such an issue. It would be an abrogation of our duty as a Government to contract out such a matter in a referendum, as I said in response to an earlier amendment. It is for Ministers to decide these issues after taking expert advice from the inspectorate and after having listened to chief constables, police authorities and others, and for Parliament to debate them and to give its consent. We do not have Government by referendum. The Home Secretary and my honourable friend Tony McNulty are continuing to explore the way forward with authorities and police officers, not least the chief constables.
	We also have a number of problems with the detail of the amendment. It would require a referendum even where the police authorities have volunteered to merge. I find that a surprising proposition. The amendment requires the Home Secretary, affected police authorities and the Electoral Commission to agree the wording of the question. What if they cannot agree? Would this mean that the referendum cannot be held? For referendums covered by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the requirement is only for the Electoral Commission to give its views on the intelligibility of the question. There is no requirement for it to agree the question, so this would be a significant extension of its role.
	Finally, the amendment requires majority votes in each of the affected areas. If, say, two out of three areas delivered majorities in favour of a merger, why should the third area, perhaps with a much smaller population, be able to exercise a veto? The process of police-force restructuring in which we are now engaged is not unprecedented. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the then 125 police forces were reduced to the current 43. That was a far more fundamental reshaping of the police service than the one on which we have now embarked. There were no referendums then, and we see no reason for them this time around.
	I know that the noble Baroness will say that the amendment is really a stalking horse, that we will raise the whole subject of referendums so that we can just have this debate, and that she is not suggesting that the amendment is correct. I do not seek to pull the amendment apart on that basis, but shall say simply that one would have to consider a plethora of difficult testing issues if any such provision were to get off the ground. We do not think that the amendment is necessary. As I said, there needs to be an informed debate on this issue, but ultimately Governments are elected to decide such issues, and we think that that is where the responsibility should remain. I know that the noble Baroness will return to this topic at the next stage, but I thank her for indicating that the one-nil victory that she has already secured from the Government tonight will suffice. We all hope, however, that England will do a little better.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: As I am English, I hope I might do a little better at some later stage, but not quite tonight.
	I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, for her support and the Minister for her careful response and explanation of why she does not like what I have proposed. None of that was too surprising, but it is helpful because it sets out some of the issues that we will need to resolve at the next stage. She was right to say that this is a stalking horse. I am well aware of some of the deficiencies in the drafting, which I will seek to address before the next stage in October.
	On Amendment No. 60, on cost-effectiveness, the noble Baroness said that I had not identified an independent body that the Home Secretary should commission. Earlier, the Government said they were dammed if they do and dammed if they don't. Here am I trying to be like John Reid, all cuddly and nice, and to offer the Home Secretary the flexibility—a word that the Government love so much—to appoint a body, provided that it is independent. The last part of my amendment says that it should not be involved in:
	"Government, police forces or police authorities".
	I give that flexibility but the Government say that it is not enough. I have not pointed out the exact body that should be nominated under the Bill.
	I give the Minister a commitment. If she will accept the earlier amendments to specify the Police Federation, the Police Superintendents' Association and ACPO as statutory consultees in the Bill, then I will try to find a body to specify in this amendment and bring it back for that delectation.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: In order to avoid the noble Baroness doing unnecessary work, because I know how hard she works already, perhaps I may indicate that we do not believe that such a body can be found. We already have Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, which is independent and we greatly value. I would not wish the noble Baroness to trouble herself unduly in that regard.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: If HMIC had been given the brief that we seek—that it should carry out a full cost benefit analysis—it might have taken the debate further forward. I did not notice the noble Baroness in her response define what the Government meant by net costs. It may be that she has a note there and wishes to refer to it. I will have to wait.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I apologise to the noble Baroness. I should have replied, and I am able to reply now. I regret not having done so straight away. I hope that she will forgive me. We are committed to meeting 100 per cent of the net costs of restructuring; that is, the reasonable costs net of the savings. We are in discussion with forces and police authorities on the costs and savings arising from particular mergers. I should have made that clear.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am grateful to the Minister. She has now highlighted one of the major issues of concern. There is a great difference between the Government's judgment on what comprises a cost and a benefit and the judgment of the police authorities and police forces. The briefing on police restructuring from the West Mercia Police Authority, under "Costs and Council Tax", makes the point:
	"The funding of a new regional police force has yet to be settled. Council Tax for policing is currently much lower in the West Midlands conurbation than in the rest of the region. Council Tax equalisation is essential, but how this will be achieved and over what period is still unknown. Abolition and merger will be costly. Estimates of costs and savings have varied considerably. Set up costs have been recently estimated by the Home Office at both £51 million and £57 million. Calculations of net annual savings arising from the proposals have also varied widely, from £15.3 million to £26 million per annum. Whether that level of saving will be realised in practice is unknown".
	Earlier, when we dealt with Amendment No. 14, we debated the federated model. In a contribution to the police reform debate, the Association of Police Authorities, in a paper called Joining Forces, published in January 2006, stated:
	"The federated model will avoid many of the revenue and capital costs and risks associated with the large scale restructuring of forces, while providing greater flexibility in the approach to generating efficiencies in corporate functions. It may therefore represent a more affordable option for addressing the protective services deficit than forced mergers".
	If I were confident that the Government were prepared to look at those costs at the same time as they carry on their discussions this summer, I would feel happier about withdrawing this amendment, as I am about to do. The difficulty is that the Minister says that her right honourable friend Dr Reid and her honourable friend Mr McNulty are now exploring ways forward whereas, as we said earlier, yesterday, on the Floor of the House in another place, the Home Secretary made it clear that the destination stays the same. It is all very well listening, but if one will not change one's mind about where one goes, what does it matter?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My right honourable friend the Home Secretary made it clear that on the basis of the information that we have, especially the HMIC advice, that road of travel is inevitable and the destination is absolutely secure. The question is how quickly can we go along that road and what do we need to do to ensure that that delivery eventually takes place? We have no evidence to indicate that that road of travel—set out so clearly by HMIC and so cogently argued by the current Inspector of Constabulary—is not the right road.
	The noble Baroness will know that all Governments have to behave responsibly. I know that she would criticise us greatly if we had cogent advice from the best source of information available to any Government but we failed and/or refused to listen to it without there being good reasons for departing from that advice. I therefore make it clear that my right honourable friend has accepted the advice from HMIC and accepted the road of travel. What is in issue is probably how quickly we can get there bearing in mind the need to take a number of people with us. That is a different thing.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: There is no difference in the long run. In practice, mergers by 2007 were going to be very difficult to achieve. We are simply seeing them put off perhaps to 2008. But we end up with the same result.
	I know that HMIC does extremely valuable work. This report has aroused much interest and has been criticised in parts. All I have said throughout is that there are other sources of information that the Government should also take seriously, one of which is from the Association of Police Authorities and the police forces themselves, which have the day-to-day experience of what is required in local areas. They feel that the federation model has not been given a fair run, a model that was not ruled out by the HMIC report. But I certainly do not wish to re-run that part of the debate which we had earlier today. I was seeking to look forward to the slightly different aspect of cost-effectiveness.
	Perhaps I may turn briefly to Amendment No. 61, which refers to the need to hold referendums locally. The Minister replied in the same vein as the reply given to my honourable friend in another place; namely, that the drafting of the amendment is defective. I have to confess that I purposely chose it to be so because I knew that I did not wish to press it to a Division today. I accept entirely what she said about the wording of the question to be put in the referendum; that is, that it would extend to an unusual extent the role of the Electoral Commission.
	The Minister also referred to the fact that there would be a referendum even if a merger is agreed. I suppose one could ask: why should not a small area be able to prevent a merger? Indeed, on the argument that I made earlier on Amendment No. 14, it may well be that a police authority in a small area, be it Gloucestershire or West Mercia, ought to be able to say: "No, we feel this is not right for us and it should not go ahead". I therefore suspect that when the amendment comes back the Minister will see little change. On the Electoral Commission, however, I assure her that I shall seek some redrafting before re-presenting it to the House. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 61 not moved.]

Baroness Harris of Richmond: moved Amendment No. 62:
	Page 82, line 12, leave out paragraphs 23 to 25.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: The amendment is also in the name of my noble friend Lord Dholakia. Under paragraphs 23 to 25 the Secretary of State would set police authorities' strategic priorities, currently a major power for police authorities. Those provisions pose a threat. If one political party is dominant—less so now than in recent years, although still broadly the case—it might abuse the powers in the Bill to set policing priorities to its own advantage and to suit its own political agenda. We must imagine these powers in the hands of unreasonable people, not of reasonable, liberal people. In the end, the only civil liberties that matter are those that protect us against Governments doing unreasonable things that we did not expect when those powers were drafted. We have been down this road before and were accused of being—what was the word the Minister used?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: Paranoid.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: No, not paranoid. We were accused of using conspiracy theories. But we can imagine how the strategic priority provisions might be used in the wrong hands. Local priorities might be set aside and priority given to controlling disruptive and unpatriotic elements.
	Had the Government of the United States, for example—a fundamentally democratic and tolerant country—been given powers such as those before us during the McCarthyite era, they would have been able to set policing priorities that might have posed a real threat to the civil liberties of American citizens. The powers before us contain the same possibility.
	In the current political environment, and under current political pressures, particular Muslim or minority groups might find themselves on the wrong end of policing priorities that followed a populist agenda. We may not be too far away from that already. Those priorities could be imposed on police authorities to give them a specific steer on the way in which to direct policing in their area. The paragraphs confer serious powers on the Secretary of State which, in a free society, are best left in the hands of police authorities. I beg to move.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am momentarily distracted by the news I have just heard—the score is one all.
	I support Amendment No. 62. We have no objection to national Governments setting national priorities for policing. That is partly what they are there to do, after all. The power to which we object is that which would impose particular priorities on police authorities at a local level. That is exactly the subject of the noble Baroness's amendment.
	The Government have claimed that the Bill introduces a more flexible system—back to flexibility. However, it is flexibility for the Government to increase their control over policing—it is not flexibility for others. The amendment highlights the key elements of the Government's intent in the Bill. There is a small but significant change of emphasis under the schedule. Heretofore, the Government have been able to set objectives for police authorities, but the Bill now makes a subtle but important change. It sets strategic priorities. There is a big difference between saying to an authority that it has an overall objective to do something and saying that it has strategic priorities. That suggests that there is a greater drilling down and more influence on what individual police authorities can do. The crux of the debate is whether the provision is a centralising measure. We say that it is.
	The concept of safer neighbourhood teams, the basic command units and the crime and disorder reduction partnerships form an element of localism. Above that, strategic priorities must lie behind what the individual organisations want to achieve with the resources that are allocated to them. The schedule shows that the balance of power is firmly with the Secretary of State, not local organisations that, in some ways, reflect local aspirations and policing needs. The influence will come from the centre, not from local neighbourhood communities.
	Safer neighbourhood teams can work very well indeed. Given their resources, however, there are limits to what they can achieve, and they should certainly not be subject to directives from central Government. The emphasis on setting strategic priorities rather than broad objectives is extremely important and in many ways goes to the heart of the debate on centralisation throughout the Bill. The strategic priorities are set from the centre, and the safer neighbourhood teams and all the locally oriented organisations are subject to such objectives which override the local priorities.
	The measure is an important shift in direction which changes the dynamic. It puts much greater emphasis on and gives more influence to the Secretary of State and takes away power from local bodies. In fact, setting strategic objectives takes power away from neighbourhoods and local communities and vests it in the centre. It means that priorities are driven by the Government rather than by the local teams on the ground. As that is not acceptable, we support the amendment.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: Amendment No. 62 would remove yet further provisions from Schedule 2—in this case, paragraphs 23 to 25, which, among other things, repeal the requirement on the Home Secretary to issue an annual national policing plan. Under current legislation, each year the Home Secretary produces a national policing plan for the following three years. The national policing plan sets the strategic direction for the police service for the medium term and the year ahead and establishes the performance framework, including any indicators or targets against which police performance would be measured and compared. The national policing plan needs to be published by 30 November each year.
	Last November, we published for the first time a national community safety plan setting out the community safety priorities for 2006–09 and incorporating the national policing plan. This new plan recognised that the delivery of community safety required a multi-agency approach and could not be delivered solely by the police. To this end, the Bill will remove the inflexible requirement to produce a national policing plan. In future, we will issue the national community safety plan on a non-statutory basis. However, the Home Secretary will still retain the ability, under new Section 37A of the Police Act, inserted by paragraph 24 of the schedule, to set "strategic priorities".
	Given the Home Secretary's overarching responsibility for maintaining an efficient and effective police service throughout England and Wales, we argue—and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, accepts this—that the Home Secretary has an entirely legitimate role in setting broad national strategic priorities to which police authorities should have regard. It is already the case that the Home Secretary can set "objectives" for police authorities in legislation. That goes back to the previous Government—to 1996 and to the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994. This is not a change of substance; it is merely a change of language.
	I see nothing sinister in this and I cannot understand why the noble Baronesses opposite should see anything perverse or peculiar in the wording of the Bill. It is a simple change in terminology. The strategic priorities that we set will be little different from former objectives. I am not a thesaurus expert, but they do not seem to be a million miles apart in their terminology. There is no power to impose new priorities; the requirement on police authorities is simply to have regard to those priorities. I am puzzled, especially because the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, is a member of a party that, in government, introduced the concept of national policing plans. While at the time I might have had some questions about whether this was a centralising feature of Mr Howard's approach to policing, one could argue that national policing plans and priorities have served us very well.
	Earlier, the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, praised arrangements that were put in place in the 1990s to make police authorities more effective in setting priorities and objectives and so on and in working with the Home Secretary to that end. We think that that element of the legislation has worked very well, and I am surprised that the wording here has raised such strange concerns. We think that this is a very straightforward and simple matter. It is a question of language and no more than that.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: Language is everything when it comes to drafting legislation, otherwise the Government would not be too worried about words such as "may", "shall", "would", "either" and "or". The use of words is important, and my concern is that the way in which the Government are putting forward these measures against the background of the rest of this part of the Bill reflects a steady ratcheting of power towards the centre. It is against that background that I find myself uncomfortable with this part of the Bill, which is why I supported the amendment. That is why I know that we shall return to matters such as this at other stages of the Bill. It is important that we debate the whole range of issues in which the Government are inexorably moving the barriers so that the Secretary of State gains more power.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her strong support, and I am particularly grateful for her intervention at that moment. She said much better than I could exactly why we feel that this amendment is important. The Bill makes subtle changes, as she said, and our concern is all about that change and that emphasis on the centre. Unlike heretofore, the balance of power now is much more towards the Secretary of State. Our concern is that priorities will be driven by the Government; they will come from the centre and not locally. The Minister said that this was only a change of language, but it is much more than that, as the noble Baroness said. I know that the Minister will recognise our concerns. We shall certainly come back to this at a later stage, but we are very concerned by the centralisation in these proposals.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am sorry, but inadvertently I said something that I think would be wrong, and I do not want the Official Report to be inaccurate. I was attempting to suggest that during the last Conservative Government national policing objectives were introduced, but I may inadvertently have said "national policing plans". I see no great difference in that, but I do not want the record to be inaccurate.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I understood what the Minister meant, and I rather assumed that someone from the Bill team would wing their way up to Hansard to change the words later anyway, as is often the case when these things happen.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: moved Amendment No. 63:
	Page 83, line 2, leave out paragraphs 26 to 28.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: In moving Amendment No. 63, I shall speak to the other amendments in the group that are in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Dholakia. The amendments would remove the extraordinary powers given to the Secretary of State in this Bill. Not only will he be able to interfere when he feels that a police authority is failing, but he will be able to interfere when he is satisfied that the whole or any part of a police force will fail to discharge its functions in an effective manner. It is extraordinary in a Bill to give the Secretary of State the power to act on a prediction of whether a police authority or force is going to fail. We need to understand more closely exactly what the powers of the Secretary of State will entail and how they will be used.
	We have several concerns about the power of intervention. The first is whether a new power is needed. The existing powers of intervention have not been used since they were introduced four years ago, in 2002. An agreed protocol is in place for forces that are in need of assistance, and it works well in practice. Indeed, in 2004 a previous Home Secretary directed Humberside's police authority to sack the then chief constable, David Westwood. When the authority said that he should remain, the Home Secretary was able to show in court that he had exercised his existing powers properly to direct that the chief constable be removed. Given that, what is the need for new powers?
	The second issue is whether it is right for the Home Secretary to take new powers to intervene not just in the police authority but directly with the chief police officer without reference to the police authority. Such a provision might create direct accountability between the chief police officer and the Secretary of State, which might interfere with the operational independence of the chief officer and undermine the tripartite relationship. The creation of fewer chief officers runs the enhanced risk that they will be increasingly answerable not to their local police authorities but to the Home Secretary.
	Thirdly, there is the issue of whether the test that is applied is adequate. After all, the proposal relates to a serious principle, where a police force is failing to such an extent that it merits direct executive action through the Home Secretary's intervention. The problem is that the Bill's wording is effectively subjective; it is a subjective test. The Bill states:
	"Where the Secretary of State is satisfied that the whole or a part of a police force will fail to discharge . . . its functions . . . he may direct . . . the chief officer . . . the police authority . . . or . . . both of them",
	to remedy the failure. Such a provision effectively allows the Secretary of State to act as judge and jury in his own right.
	We seek either reassurance on this point or some mechanism to prescribe more closely the circumstances in which the Home Secretary would be able to intervene; otherwise we would be creating a sweeping power to enable future intervention. However, there is nothing in the Bill to ensure that these powers will be used only as a last resort. They could be used entirely according to the Home Secretary's judgment about whether a force was behaving effectively. Unfortunately, we cannot rely on assurances given by Ministers that powers are intended to be used only as a last resort when they are drawn in such a way that they could enable significant additional intervention in circumstances that we could not foresee.
	The remaining amendments are intended to tighten up the current provisions in the Bill. They make it clear that a failure must be serious and permanent, and that the intervention must be an exceptional one. They further make it clear that such an intervention will be used only as a last resort. When a provision allows the Secretary of State to take powers directly to intervene in the running of police forces, not just police authorities, that gives rise to real concerns that it is effectively a centralising measure. We need to understand how those measures are intended to be used and we need to be reassured that the Bill will allow them to be used only in exceptional circumstances. I beg to move.

Baroness Pitkeathley: If Amendment No. 63 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 64 to 79 for reasons of pre-emption.

Baroness Henig: I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 67, 68, 70, 71, 73, 76, 77, 78 and 79, standing in my name, and particularly to Amendments Nos. 76 and 77. In speaking to these amendments, I am very conscious that we are talking about powers of last resort. However, I am also conscious that numerous bodies involved in policing are dedicated to improvement. A large number of agencies, inspectors of constabulary, the standards unit, APA, ACPO and the Audit Commission are trying to improve policing. Against that background I am very concerned about these powers. Nothing in the legislation concerns me as much as the provisions on intervention by the Secretary of State in a failing police authority or a failing police force.
	The objectives of my amendments fall into three or four categories. The first is to narrow the ground on which the Secretary of State can intervene. I accept that there may be drastic situations in which everything else has failed and the Secretary of State has to intervene, but those should be few and far between and need to be specified. I accept that if HMIC says that there is a major problem, it should constitute a ground for such action and that if there is a national inquiry, as we had not very long ago, that should also constitute a ground. However, a wide power for the Secretary of State to intervene in police forces or authorities, not defined in the tight way that I seek, would be too great a power for him.
	Secondly, I go back to my absolute conviction that the tripartite structure is the right way for policing to proceed. We all say how important the tripartite structure is. If it really is that important, then before the Secretary of State intervenes he should have to consult ACPO and the APA. Such problems in forces or authorities do not occur in isolation. Both ACPO and the APA would be the first to want to resolve these issues. Intervention will not be effective without collaboration with ACPO and the APA. Therefore, my second intention is to ensure that the Secretary of State has to consult those national bodies, which have the interests of forces and authorities at heart.
	My third objective is that the Secretary of State should, as now, have to intervene through the police authority. I do not believe that the Secretary of State should be able to intervene directly in a force and bypass the authority. That would undermine the police authority. If you agree with the tripartite relationship and you want strong police authorities and forces, you have to go with the structure that you have. If intervention takes place, it should occur as now, through the police authority. In 2001–02, we fought very hard to get the structure that we have in place. I do not understand why it is now felt necessary to move away from that structure and for the Secretary of State to be able to intervene without going through the police authority.
	As I have said, upholding the tripartite relationship is central to my concerns. I do not believe that the Home Secretary should be able to micromanage forces or authorities. If I believe anything at all strongly about this legislation, it is that the Home Secretary has strategic responsibilities, but delivery is in the hands of authorities and forces. You cannot deliver from the Home Office; you have to deliver through agencies in which you have confidence. That is the bedrock of the tripartite relationship and what local accountability means.
	In 2001 and 2002, when these issues were last debated, this House and the Commons rejected proposals to enable the Home Secretary to intervene directly. It was right then, and it would be right now to reject those proposals. I do not believe that anything significant has changed in the interim; indeed, quite the contrary, because in the interim we have had a difficult problem in a police force in Humberside. How was that resolved? It was resolved in partnership between ACPO and the Home Office and between local and national authorities. That is how we will resolve issues, and if we are not to resolve them in collaboration, they will not be easily resolved.
	We know that in practical terms the Home Office and the Home Secretary must work with agencies, either with ACPO and the APA, or with the local force and authority. I therefore feel very strongly that the clauses should reflect the reality of how improvement will be brought about. So, as ever, my amendments seek a positive way forward. I do not believe that the intervention powers as posited in the legislation will work effectively; they will have an adverse effect. I seek to be helpful and positive, and I suggest that if we want these powers to work they must have certain safeguards. That is the purpose of my amendments.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I support all the amendments to which I have added my name and, after the superb speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, I add my support to her amendments also. The Bill would give Ministers greater powers to interfere in operational policing matters. I agree entirely with what the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, has just said: it is not right for the Secretary of State to micromanage. It is not where his powers should lie, it is not where his ability lies and it should not be the main thrust of his part in the tripartite relationship.
	That is the case simply because policing should not be politicised. I feel sure that the Minister would agree with that. The police must be able to remain free from that. They must be able to investigate crime independently and apply the laws passed by Parliament free from party-political pressure. The amendments are a sensible and constructive response. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, talked about her constructive approach, and that is exactly what she has underlined. The amendments reflect the deep concern expressed about the powers to be conferred on the Secretary of State to direct the chief officers of the police. ACPO puts it concisely:
	"This is an unprecedented and seismic shift in the balance of roles and responsibilities within the tri-partite relationship and must be withdrawn".
	The Home Secretary should not have the power to intervene on his own initiative in a way that interferes in failing police forces and police authorities. That is where the difficulty lies. It looks as though the Government are trying to get through the back door the provisions that they failed to get through the front door in our debates on the Police Reform Act 2002. I recall those debates as a member of another team at the time. I was lucky enough to be given this job just as the Police Reform Act was being passed from House to House in what we fondly call ping-pong. On the occasion when I was invited to take up this job, I was told, "In 10 days' time you have the Second Reading of the asylum Bill and, by the way, next week there is the ping-pong of the Police Reform Bill". Fortunately for me, my colleagues who had been involved in that dealt with the majority of the ping-pong. What was important at that stage was that the Government rowed back from the position that they had taken on the intervention powers of the Secretary of State in policing matters, and they were right to do so. I say as softly as I can that the Home Secretary is mistaken in seeking to go forward now.
	Schedule 2 could create direct accountability between the chief officer and the Secretary of State, which could thereby interfere with the operational independence of the chief officer and undermine that valuable tripartite relationship. The creation of fewer chief officers, which we may well see, runs the extra risk that they are increasingly answerable not to the local police authorities but to the Home Secretary. If power is exercised in that way, I expect that the trend will be enforced. We also must consider whether the test to be applied is adequate. The proposal relates to the serious principle that a police force is failing to such an extent that it justifies direct executive action by the Government. The problem is that the way in which the Bill is drafted makes the decision effectively a subjective one, because it states:
	"Where the Secretary of State is satisfied that the whole or a part of a police force will fail to discharge . . . its functions . . . he may direct . . . the chief officer . . . the police authority . . . or . . . both of them",
	to remedy the failure. That leaves the Home Secretary as judge and jury in his own case.
	It is not simply enough to say that the powers will be reserved. Paragraph 101 of the Explanatory Notes states:
	"Subsection (4)(a) to (d) of new section 40 is intended to ensure that the power to give directions is only used as a last resort".
	That is simply not what the Bill says. Nothing in the Bill restricts the use of such a strong power of intervention. The power can be used entirely according to the Home Secretary's judgment about whether a force is acting effectively. The Minister may well repeat the assurances given by her colleagues in another place and say that the wide power will be used with great restraint, as a last resort. I gently have to say that that will not be good enough for me. Her assurance is always taken by me as a serious matter and binds her as an honourable person, as I know, but it does not bind future Home Secretaries or Governments. If it were mine, we would be so bound on this matter, but we know not what will happen.
	We should not leave in the Bill powers that could be misused. My preference is that they should be removed entirely. If that is not possible, I have been strongly persuaded by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig. She has done a great service to this House in every respect. Between her, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, we have three people here who know more about the workings of the police authorities than, I suspect, the whole of the rest of the House and perhaps another place put together.
	I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, with great care. She made some extremely powerful arguments, particularly with regard to this being a power of last resort and the danger that we have with the drafting of the Bill. She is right that it should be a very narrow ground on which the Home Secretary might intervene. I had thought that we could not have anything in the Bill but if she could work with the Minister to find a definition of that narrow ground, that would be productive. I say so without having consulted my colleagues in another place because they have not had the benefit of hearing the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, so I may find myself not doing this job tomorrow, with more free time and more work/life balance—who knows?
	It would be very constructive if we could find a way of defining the scope so that cases are few and far between and are specified. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, is right to say that intervention is not effective without consultation and co-operation with the national bodies, the police authorities and the chief officers. She cited practical examples of how that can work, provided that you work through the local bodies that should deliver the quality of service.
	We have come to one of the most important parts of the Bill. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, says that this is the most important part. I can sympathise and say, yes, I agree with her, regarding this part of the Bill. However, I also have to look at the rest of the Bill—a portmanteau Bill into which the Government have shoved a heck of a lot of other things. My colleagues are interested in extradition, and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons would not be pleased with me if I agreed with the noble Baroness and said that this is the most important part of the Bill. However, she is right to identify this part of the Bill. We need to get this right if the Bill is to serve this country well.

Lord Dholakia: I was not going to intervene. However, I have been so engrossed by the wonderful argument put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and by my noble friend Lady Harris and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, that, despite England winning two-one, I would much rather be in this Chamber to listen to and support my colleagues than go round and see what is going on at the other end.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I know that the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, has always been a favoured son of this House, but perhaps I may say that he has given a great deal of pleasure to a few people who are still labouring in the vineyard away from the goods.
	I endorse what has been said about the care with which the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, and my noble friend Lady Henig have approached these issues. I acknowledge straight away that they have a wealth of experience. As I have already indicated, the Government have listened and will listen carefully to what they have said. I can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, of that. Before I deal with the meat of the amendments, I should make it clear that we believe that this is a power of last resort.
	Perhaps I may say how difficult it is to concentrate on winning this Bill when things are changing so rapidly in another place—and I do not mean the other House.
	Improvement of the police authority and all the things that we have put in place to make performance better will make a huge contribution to the way in which things work. I also understand what my noble friend says about accepting that an appropriate time to intervene is when there is evidence from an independent source such as an inquiry and also when there is an HMIC recommendation; and that she wishes to see a narrowing down of the issues upon which this power can be used. I want to make it plain that I absolutely understand her concern. I hope that in going through the detail, which may take a little time, I shall be able to reassure each noble Baroness that their concerns are not merited. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, on her sterling perseverance in opening this group of amendments.
	The intervention powers, as everyone has acknowledged, are to be a last resort to require policing failings to be addressed. The rationale for the Government's revisions to the existing powers is based on experience gained since the inception of the original powers and from our work supporting under-performing forces. Although I appreciate the position that existed in 2002, and as the noble Baronesses will know, a number of significant events have occurred since then which have made us all review the situation slightly differently.
	We recognise that these powers are not to be used lightly. I reiterate that they are steps of last resort to be taken only when serious and enduring performance problems have arisen. However, where performance problems are persistent and the service that the public are receiving is being affected, it is important that expeditious steps are taken to remedy it. These changes are being brought about on account of what has been learnt about police performance over the past few years. We now have a clearer understanding of what needs to be in place to ensure that all forces strive for continuous improvement and to ensure that those with the most serious problems are dealt with most effectively.
	Effective intervention powers must be in place to ensure that appropriate action can be taken when a police area or police authority is taking too long to show an acceptable level of performance improvement, when it simply does not have the capability to address the problems itself, or, in the most extreme and unusual cases, when it refuses to co-operate to remedy its failings.
	These revisions are about ensuring that the powers are framed so as to provide the most focused and effective response to performance failings in both police forces and police authorities. The revisions are intended merely to improve the processes and procedures surrounding the use of the powers to ensure that they serve as an effective lever of continuous performance improvement.
	Amendment No. 63 would remove all the proposed changes to the intervention powers. That would overlook the key role that intervention powers play in driving up police performance and the changes needed to frame the powers most effectively. I listened very carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said and noted that she has been persuaded by my noble friend to indicate that that course may not be necessary.
	Amendments Nos. 64, 65, 74 and 75 seek, in the first instance, to propose a definition for the level of performance failing that would lead to intervention for failure that was "serious and permanent". Furthermore, that intervention would occur only "exceptionally" and "if there was no alternative". I appreciate that there is value in seeking to clarify the terms of performance failing that would serve as the threshold for intervention, but we are not convinced by the proposed wording.
	I agree, too, that we should be talking about intervention in "serious" cases but I do not believe that we would want to wait for the failing to be "permanent" before we were prepared to act. The powers are intended to be used in cases of "significant or enduring" failings in circumstances when not acting would leave communities with an unacceptable and lasting level of poor service. However, I am not convinced that adding such a definition to the Bill would enhance the powers in the way that we intend. What would happen if the failing was significant but had yet to be proven to be enduring, but authoritative voices said that if immediate remedial action was not taken, the failing would become enduring?
	A number of safeguards are already built into the Bill to ensure that a power of direction is issued only when failings of effectiveness have been identified and the area has already had sufficient information and time to address them. This is so that intervention takes place only in the most exceptional circumstances and when all other alternatives have been attempted—for example, through an engagement by the Police Standards Unit. But I am not inclined to agree that it is necessary or helpful to add such further provisos to the Bill.
	Amendments Nos. 66, 67, 69 and 70 propose that we remove the revision which would enable the Secretary of State to route the powers direct to the chief officer of the force in respect of police forces that are failing or that will fail. The revision is not about bypassing the police authority or the police authority's important role in holding forces to account for their performance; it is about reflecting the reality of how best to tackle performance problems by dealing directly with those who are able to enact the changes that are needed to address them.
	The revision is also intended to allow us to act on behalf of a police authority, should it so wish, in the event that it would prefer us to deal directly with the chief officer. These provisions are intended to ensure that the most effective action can be taken to address the serious failings. So we oppose the amendments which seek to remove these clauses, but we do not dismiss the importance that noble Lords have attached to them.
	Amendment No. 79 would remove the provision that requires the Secretary of State to notify the police authority responsible for maintaining a police force when he has given a direction directly to the chief officer of the police force concerned. This provision has been included in the Bill to ensure that police authorities are kept informed if the Secretary of State is left with no option other than to give a direction to the chief officer of the relevant police force. We believe that it is right that this option should remain a part of the Bill. It is important to make a provision to ensure that a police authority is informed from the outset of any decision to intervene. I agree with my noble friend Lady Henig about the importance of collaborative working.
	I now turn to my noble friend's Amendments Nos. 68 and 76, which seek to limit the possible sources of information. The amendments propose that the trigger for the use of these powers be either an inspectorate report or an inquiry established under Section 49 of the Police Act, which finds that the force or police authority, or part of it, is failing to discharge any of its functions. One of the changes brought forward in the Bill is to widen the sources of information which the Secretary of State might examine when considering whether a force or authority is failing. The amendment recognises that it is not the inspectorate alone that might provide such a view, but I am afraid that it is still unhelpful to restrict the possible sources of information that might shed light on serious police failings.
	First, we are not convinced that it is necessarily helpful to seek to produce a definitive list of organisations and voices which can inform the Secretary of State. Naturally, we can see that that might be desirable, and I understand that the Secretary of State's decision should be informed by authoritative and credible accounts of police effectiveness and performance.
	The formulation used in the amendments, if I may gently say so to my noble friend, overlooks other agencies or bodies, which might cast the spotlight on failings or performances—things that I know she knows very well. Examples might include an Independent Police Complaints Commission report or one of the now annual police performance assessments, which combine the performance data with the inspectorate's quality of view. That would be of assistance. There would inevitably be others that we cannot foresee today, and we believe that it is unhelpful to try to set out a specific list of bodies.
	Secondly, the amendment overlooks the fact that the new inspectorate will not be required to report on the efficiency and effectiveness or otherwise of the police forces and authorities. I understand the purpose of my noble friend's amendment. I understand her concern, and I think that it will be important for us to continue to talk about these issues. I reassure noble Lords that we have taken these issues into account.
	There are similar comments in relation to Amendments Nos. 71 and 77—and, indeed, to Amendments Nos. 72, 73 and 78. I am conscious that it is almost 10 o'clock, so I say in conclusion that although I understand the nature of the concerns and the need to work on the issue, we think that we have the balance about right. We shall not use it inappropriately. I can see that it is an area in which it may benefit us to have further discussions between now and Report. I cannot say that they will necessarily bring about material changes, but we would benefit from having those discussions. I do not believe that we are far apart. I believe that my noble friend's indications are that she accepts that other sources may give real cause for concern.
	My noble friend accepts that it should be in extremis but she says clearly that there has to be some sort of agreed line which makes sure that it is in extremis and not part of day-to-day practice, which we are absolutely clear it should not be. With that, I invite noble Lords not to press the amendment, not because I am guaranteeing that we will come back with anything else, but because it is an issue on which we could speak.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: The noble Baroness has been very helpful in her response, but there is still a gulf between us. When she talks about the directions being used in extremis, that is one part of the equation. Even if there were a way of defining carefully on the face of the Bill what that situation would be, there is still the other aspect that was spoken to so well by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, about the directions being delivered locally and not dealt with in a subjective way by the Secretary of State. So it is not the whole of the equation.
	It might be helpful if I indicate that, although I shall keep the opposition to Schedule 2 on the Marshalled List for debate on another day, the Minister has done enough to persuade me that I should not now divide on that, which I had originally intended to do because I have such concerns about a range of issues in Schedule 2. On this particular group of amendments, however, the way that the Minister has offered discussions in the summer means that it would be wrong of me to divide when we have that debate.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: I am enormously grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay and Lady Henig, who have included in their speeches exactly what I would have wanted to say. The existing powers have not been used. We still feel that it is not necessary to give more power to the Secretary of State. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, said that the tripartite structure was at the centre of what we are talking about and that the Home Secretary must not micromanage, but intervene through police authorities. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said that the police must remain independent, free of party-political pressures.
	I, too, recognise what the Minister has said tonight. I am most grateful for her long explanation of the Government's position. However, we have serious concerns which she has recognised. It would be enormously helpful if we could discuss where we might go from here. I certainly hear that she cannot promise anything, but there is perhaps a little room for manoeuvre.
	We will certainly be coming back to these amendments on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 64 to 79 not moved.]

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I beg to move that the House do now resume.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House resumed.

National Health Service (Consequential Provisions) Bill [HL]

A message was received from the Commons that they concur with the Lords message of 19 June.
	House adjourned at four minutes past ten o'clock.